A Chink in the Armor
by Wyrmseeker
Summary: Samus falls victim to a Space Pirate trap. Having lost her Fusion Suit, her only hope for survival is a young Federation biologist who offers a unique solution to her problems.
1. Contract Agreement

"The recent investigation into the BSL SR388 explosion by a Federation Superior Court has finished. Bounty hunter Samus Aran, and her ship's computer –called 'Adam' by Aran and other Federation officials –were found not guilty of treason and sabotage of the Federation's Metroid and X parasite studies. Sources doubt that some Federation officials will be satisfied, and will appeal the case to yet another court, despite repeated findings of Aran's-"

Samus switched off the monitor, and sighed. "When will they give up, Adam? Almost every major court in the galaxy has deemed us innocent by now."

"Are we really innocent, though?" Adam replied through the onboard speakers. "When you discovered the Metroid Project, you were considerably less than happy, and when the Federation decided to start an X-parasite program…"

"I suppose you're right, but we acted in self-defense. We certainly aren't guilty of treason."

"Not treason per se, anyway," the computer replied.

As the small gunship roared through space, headed for nowhere in particular, Samus lay back on her bed. Her computerized CO, Adam, was trying to keep her spirits up with sarcasm, but it wasn't having the intended effect. The federation officials, furious with the destruction of the entire X-parasite species, would probably not give up until she was put on probation.

Or, until they needed her again.

"If they want to start a Metroid breeding program, why not look for the Chozo? They were the ones who engineered the Metroids. They'd know everything there is about them," Samus said, sitting up again.

"Officially, there are no Chozo left," Adam said.

"You know as well as I do that that's a lie."

"Samus, even if there were any surviving Chozo on Zebes, they would have been destroyed along with the planet."

"They weren't on Zebes. After the Pirate occupation began, they moved to another planet."

"They did? Well, why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I… I don't know. I don't want the poor souls to be hounded by Federation biologists, especially after everything they did for me."

"You ask why they don't go looking for the Chozo, and then you say you don't want them to find the Chozo? How did I ever keep my sanity while we were working together?"

Samus's reply was cut off, as a nearby monitor lit up with an 'INCOMING MESSAGE' alert. Samus quickly got off her bed, and straightened up. She started pulling on her Fusion suit, and called, "Put it through, Adam."

Samus was putting on her helmet as the face of Federation Officer Connehan appeared on her screen. His beard was neatly trimmed, as always, and he was wearing a tie. Samus never saw him without a tie. It was the same tie every time, too. Samus wondered if he ever changed his clothes. But this time, his neatly trimmed hair was a bit frazzled, and his face betrayed impatience… and fear.

"Samus," he growled. "We have a problem."

"Go on," Samus replied, her voice being filtered through the Fusion Suit's intercom system.

"I didn't believe it at first, but I got a report about a pair of Space Pirate galleons attacking Aliehs III."

Samus shook her head. "That's impossible. The space pirates have been cleaned out of the galaxy. Even if there were any pirates left at all, they wouldn't have two galleons left."

"That's what I thought," Connehan replied. "But regulations say we have to investigate all reported pirate activity, so I went in a small cruiser with a small complement of troopers."

"How small a complement?"

Connehan looked down. "Too small. As soon as we came into Aliehs space, a galleon appeared and nearly shot us out of the sky. Dozens more arrived in the next twenty minutes. We don't know if they're planning an invasion of the planet, but we can't take the risk. We've called every available ship to help us, but there are so many pirate vessels…" He looked up toward Samus. "...and that's why we need you. If the Pirates saw you here, they'd lose all hope!"

Before Samus could reply, Adam cut in; "We may have trouble helping, sir. We are under investigation for treason, after all."

"We will end our persecution! All charges will be dropped!" Connehan yelled. "Just hurry, please!"

"Very well," Samus said. "Over and out."

The monitor turned off.

"You shouldn't have done that," Samus said. "It was risky."

"But it worked," Adam replied. "We got our charges dropped, and a new contract."

Samus couldn't help but smile to herself. _That perfect military mind… _"All right. I assume you've already set a course?"

"Yes. Course set for Aliehs III. By the way, what do you think the Pirates want there?"

Samus shrugged. "Ships, or supplies for ships. On the other hand, they could be looking for the plans to my old Hunter-class ship, looking for a weak spot."

"Your hunter-class ship was destroyed."

"The pirates might not know that," Samus said. "Look, it doesn't really matter why they're there; this may be their last strike against the Federation, and we have to be sure it fails."

The ship turned in space, and rocketed at full power towards the shipyards of Aliehs III.


	2. Self Destruct

As Samus's ship came out of hyperspace, Samus noticed that they had come in behind a moon. Samus was unaware that Aliehs III had any moons. But this moon was keeping her hidden from most of the pirate fleet; a fleet for an attack that was, as she soon found out, no prank.

"Coming into scanning range of Aliehs III," Adam called. "It looks like Connehan was right; this is a large-scale pirate assault. Detecting several Pirate Galleons and Assault gunships. One troop frigate detected as well."

"Only one?" Samus wondered, checking the monitors. "Odd… maybe they won't invade, after all."

"All the better for us," Adam replied. "Charging weapons; standing by for your mark, lady."

Samus frowned. "I don't like it. They don't have a strong enough force to capture the planet, or to even destroy a fair bit of it. Even if they could destroy the shipyards, there are plenty of others that are just as good and as cheap that the Federation could use instead. What are the pirates playing at?"

"Who knows?" Adam said. "Look, there are too many possible reasons for the attack to count in an hour. We don't have an hour. A pirate interceptor is coming this way."

Samus looked at the radar monitor. A mid-sized ship, designed for speed and offensive capability, was coming quickly at them. Its weapons were fully charged, and it was moving on an attack vector.

"All right," Samus sighed. She would have time to muse later. Right now, her attention was needed in the present. She sat down in the ship's single chair. "Give me full tactical control," she called.

The monitors and controls in front of her lit up. The main monitor showed the happenings just in front of the ship. Samus took a bead on the interceptor, and fired.

Samus made precise calculations in her head as she aimed, and apparently, so did the pirates. They slowed down a fraction of an inch per second, and Samus's shot sped right by them.

"Crud," Samus said. "These guys are good."

She lowered weapon power, and increased rate of fire. She then re-aimed at the pirate ship, and began firing.

"Several direct hits, but minimal damage," Adam reported.

"How minimal?" Samus asked.

"Not too minimal," Adam replied. "A few more assaults like that will bring them down."

"Got it," Samus said. She opened fire again. The interceptor took several hits, but continued onwards. It was clear they wanted to get much closer to Samus than simple weapons range.

"Samus," Adam said suddenly, "I think the—mm—be tr—ing to sc-"

"Adam?" Samus yelled. "Adam!" The computer's synthesized voice had been replaced by broken static. She risked a glance at Adam's status screen; it was completely blank.

Samus thought for a moment. There were two ways that Adam could go offline in combat. The first one that came to her mind was combat damage to a computer terminal. But the pirates hadn't even fired at them.

Another thing that would knock him offline was a computer scan…

Samus looked down at her monitors. All of the ship's records were flashing across them. The pirates were scanning her, all right, but why?

Then, something popped onto the main screen, and stayed there. It was the ship's registry files. That's what they were after; they wanted to know whom the ship belonged to.

And Samus had a good idea of why.

The monitors flashed back to normal, and Adam's broken voice became intelligible again.

"Samus, they–"

"I know, I know," Samus yelled. "Transfer all shield and propulsion power to weapon fire rate and power!"

"Done!" Adam said. "Take them out, fast. That's an order!"

Samus hastily took a bead on the pirate interceptor. The ship was in full retreat. She fired off a scattershot of her ship's primary cannons at full power. Several of the shots hit the interceptor. It was destroyed in a matter of seconds.

"That got it," she announced.

"Not before they sent a message to the rest of the fleet," Adam reported, sadly. "They know who you are, and they know you're here."

Samus checked her radar. Every blip on the screen was moving towards the last known position of the pirate interceptor.

"Crud," Samus muttered. "Adam, full power to engines and rear shields! We have to get to the rest of the federation fleet before anything else happens!"

The ship started moving at full power towards the safety of the federation armada, away from the wreckage of the interceptor. Samus diverted her main weapons power back to rear shielding, thinking that any hostile vessels would come up from behind.

She was right. Several Pirate destroyers were pulling up behind her.

"Crud!" Samus growled. "Adam, activate a distress beacon. Backup all of the ship's archives in the Black Box, and erase all the originals."

"Done," Adam announced after a short delay. "Samus, you don't think…"

"I don't know," Samus said. "As long as I can take down one more pirate with me, I'll be content, but…"

Samus was cut off by weapons fire from the ships to their rear, and the shipped rocked as it took a hit.

"A hit!" Adam yelled. "Heavy damage to the hull!"

"Turn us around," Samus called. "Take all power from all non-essential systems to front shields and weaponry!"

"Lady, you can't mean to take them on!"

"There's no way we can make it back to the fleet if they keep firing," Samus said. "This is our only chance."

The lights in the cockpit turned off for a second, and were quickly replaced by the eerie red glow of the emergency lights. Samus looked down at her suit's arm cannon. _The cowardly pirates attack by ship_, she thought. _If we were actually battling, one-on-one…_

Her train of thought was interrupted, as her ship's alarms blared that the enemy ship was locking on to her. Samus pulled the ship upwards, and the pirates' attack passed harmlessly beneath her gunship. Then, the ship alerted her again to an enemy lock-on. Samus was too close this time to dodge; the pirates got a direct hit on her. Samus was thrown from her seat. Many parts of the ship took massive damage.

But none were destroyed. _Odd… with that last blast, the pirates could have destroyed me if they wanted to._

_Does that mean… they don't want to?_

Samus's mind raced. She thought back over the years, over her various incursions into the Pirate bases. The Phazon mines on Tallon IV; that's what her mind was going back to. A computer she had scanned, a Pirate logfile…

…_eliminated, preferably in a manner that her armorsuit may be recovered, intact…_

The pirates were after her Fusion suit. She couldn't allow them to get it.

"Adam," she whispered, "I'm sorry."

"What? Lady, wha–"

Samus pressed a button on her control panel. The ship's black box, containing all of the ship's logs and Adam's main program, was jettisoned, and all of Adam's presence on the ship was removed. Samus knew the pirates wouldn't be able to spot it, and the computer program might be helpful to the Federation in the future.

Samus pressed one more button: the emergency self-destruct auto sequence.

"Five seconds," she called to the ship's auxiliary computer.

"Five-second countdown set," the feminine voice of the computer replied. "Five."

One of the pirate galleons fired. The shot, racing towards her ship, seemed to be moving in slow motion.

"Four."

The shot struck. The pirates were still shooting to disable her. Something was jarred loose outside the ship, but the vessel remained mostly intact.

"Three."

Something floated by Samus's window; the part of the ship that had been blasted off. Samus looked at it, casually at first, but then in horror, as she realized what it was.

"Two."

The ship's self-destruct mechanism was floating away, held only by a pair of command wires leading to the bomb.

"Abort! Abort!" she cried.

"One."

The computer didn't respond. The command cables leading to the bomb were unable to cancel a countdown; simply to execute it.

There was no "Zero." The world simply exploded around Samus.

She stayed conscious long enough to remember a few things. The bomb was too far from her ship to destroy it, but caused massive damage to all the systems. The crippled rolled through space, caught in the gravitational pull of a small moon. Samus felt the extreme heat of entering the atmosphere; the outer hull was mostly burned away, but remained intact enough to keep her alive. Then, at last, with the impact of a meteor, the ship struck down, and she saw nothing but darkness.


	3. Planetfall

Connehan swore out loud as the blip on his radar screen that represented Aran's vessel disappeared. "This is the GFS _Oberon_ to all friendly vessels! We have lost tracking on Samus Aran's gunship. Do you have a visual on Aran and the Pirate Galleons?"

"This is the GFS _Iliad,_" came the reply. "We do have a visual on Aran's vessel. From what we can see, it seems that the self-destruct mechanism was activated, but misfired."

"Misfired! How can a self-destruct mechanism misfire! It's a bomb! It can't misfire!"

"Unknown. Perhaps she—"

"Never mind!" Connehan barked. "Is Aran's ship destroyed?"

"Negative, but it's taken heavy damage from the explosion. Unable to determine if Aran herself is alive. Ship is currently on a crash trajectory with Aliehs III's moon."

_I didn't know Aliehs III had a moon, _Connehan thought.

"This is the _Iliad_ again," the voice crackled over the radio once more. "Aran's ship has crashed on Aliehs III's moon. It seems mostly intact, though."

Connehan looked over at one of the techies on the _Oberon's_ command deck. "Scan the moon's environment."

"What? Why?"

"Because I said so! Scan it, already!"

The techie shrugged, and turned to his computer console. A few moments later, he called to Connehan. "Confirmed an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. No known animal life, minimal plant life. High light levels produced by some natural planetary energy source."

"That'll do," Connehan said. "If Aran's alive, she'll be able to survive for a while even without her fusion suit."

"I'm no sure how much time she has, sir," called a radar operator.

"What do you mean?"

"Enemy troop transport is breaking formation, and heading towards the moon."

Connehan swore. The single troop frigate brought along by the Pirates had been remaining in back of the fleet until now. It was undoubtedly going after Aran's crashed ship.

"_Oberon _to _Iliad._ This is Connehan. Can you intercept enemy troop transport?"

"_Iliad_ here. Negative. We're just a scout vessel. Our weapons won't do much good against that sort of armor."

Connehan swore again. Scout ships were too fast for heavy ships to follow, so the only weapons they had were able to drive off only fast, weak pursuers. The _Oberon_ herself had no weapons at all. She was designed to be a fast ship to confirm reports of such incidents as the pirate attack and return to base with a report before anything could happen. Of course, on this trip, something very bad happened.

"Who's the next closest ship?" Connehan asked a radar operator.

"The _Helios,_ sir."

Connehan smiled. The _Helios_ was a heavy warship. It would be able to destroy the pirate frigate easily.

"_Oberon _to _Helios._ Can you intercept enemy troop transport?"

"This is the _Helios._ That's a negative, Connehan."

"A negative! Why?"

"Our propulsion systems are heavily damaged. Unable to pursue enemy vessel. Long-range weapons tracking is also offline; unable to engage ship from afar."

Connehan swore. 'None of our other ships are close enough, or fast enough… _Iliad,_ can you land a search-and rescue team on the moon before the pirates land?"

"Negative. Our landing gear was damaged in the battle, and we're not carrying any shuttles."

Connehan almost kicked the comm console. _Blast!_ He thought. _Sorry, Samus, but it looks like we can't help you this time._

Connehan's attention was suddenly diverted to a radar operator who called out. "There's another ship exiting hyperspace," he yelled. "It's coming out on the far side of the moon, where Samus is. Unknown configuration."

"What?" Connehan looked over the operator's shoulder; what he could see of the ship was unlike anything he had seen before. "Scan it," he commanded.

The operator hit a few buttons on the console, then shook his head. "Can't. Local interference is blocking the scan wave."

Connehan sat down, slumping resignedly in his chair. "Whoever it is, I hope they're friendly, and here to help."

* * *

Samus pulled herself from the wreckage of her ship. She studied it for awhile. The distress beacon seemed unharmed. That was good; the federation would be able to find it, and rescue her immediately. Plus, the pirates had no idea what channel the distress beacon was on, so they would probably spend hours searching for her before they found her, assuming the federation ships didn't get there first.

She hoped.

The moon of Aiehs III had a hazy, but breathable atmosphere. While the fusion suit enabled Samus to breathe anywhere, she was glad that a lightly-armored Federation search team would be able to breath, too.

Samus was a little shaken from the crash, but the fusion suit had protected her from the worst of it. The suit itself was remarkably intact, with all systems operating at nominal strength. The suit used federation data and absorbed X-parasite genetic code for most of its abilities, but the original Chozo design was what made it so powerful. Even after serious surgery during the X's attack on her, many features of the original design still held strong.

Samus was distracted from her thoughts as she heard something. Looking up, she saw a massive dark shape descending through the hazy atmosphere of the moon. It was impossible to distinguish anything about it through the haze, but Samus was sure that it was a Federation vessel, come to rescue her. After all, the Federation had her distress beacon to follow. How could the pirates discover her location so quickly?

_They could have kept careful track of my movements, and noted almost the exact coordinates where I crashed, and then set in a ship, _she thought.

_Crap._

Samus leaped backwards, just as a blast released from one of the trooper frigate's few cannons struck the ground. Samus landed, and checked her suit systems. She had been unscathed by the blast. She was lucky that pirate gunners had a knack for not being able to hit anything.

The ship lowered through the haze. Samus could recognize the markings on its hull now. It was a trooper frigate, carrying as many pirates as could safely fit. All of the troops not able or adequate to serve on a vessel were probably stuffed in there, and were all set to jump out at a moment's notice.

The moment that they were noticed came a little too quickly for Samus. The instant the frigate was landed, pirate troopers and aerotroopers started pouring out of the sides of the vessel. Samus gritted her teeth; her eyes had narrowed to slits behind her visor. She charged up a diffusion missile, and released it with a roar. The missile struck one trooper, killing him instantly. All the troopers in his area were frozen by the diffusion blast, and soon met their ends riding on more of Samus's missiles.

But the diffusion missiles could only take care of about half a dozen troopers at a time, and there were at least a hundred of them coming towards Samus. Soon, they were too close; Samus could not take the time to charge her missiles. She turned to run, firing ice beam blasts over her shoulder.

The huntress's retreat was short lived. An aerotrooper began firing at the ground Samus was about to run over. Samus stopped; the trooper's blasts hit the ground in front of her harmlessly. But that brief pause was all the pirates needed. In a moment, they were all around her. Ground troops pummeled her with their bayonets, and aerotroopers lay cover fire from above. Samus could not last long like that. Soon she lay, unconscious and helpless, in the claws of a pirate ground trooper.

The trooper's squad leader barked out an order in their guttural language. The trooper holding Samus nodded, and began carrying her towards the frigate. The pirates were too unfamiliar with human vital signs to tell if she was alive or merely unconscious, but it didn't matter. They had what they had come for, and were ready to go.

* * *

"Pirate frigate has been on surface of moon for almost five minutes," a radar operator aboard the _Oberon_ called.

Connehan slumped even further in his command chair. "What's the status of the unidentified vessel?" he asked.

"It's almost to the point where the frigate landed," the same operator replied.

Connehan smiled weakly. "I suppose we're about to find out just how friendly they are."


	4. Uninvited Guests

Pirate trooper PI-NTE-54672-zeta looked down at the limp human in his arms. She was covered by her fusion suit now, but, in a few short hours, that suit would be removed from her grasp, if all went well.

But what was meant by "all went well"? The trooper had not fired a shot during the chase. There was none of the hatred for the Hunter in his belly, which all his brethren seemed to share. He had merely been by Aran when she finally fell. He caught her, as more of a reflex action than anything else. His commanding officer had promised him a commendation and a reward for doing so. But he was just in the right place at the right time.

But there was another possibility, one which he refused to acknowledge. Still it persisted in his mind: perhaps he had not fired at Aran, for he wished her to remain free. Now she was in his arms, under his protection. Perhaps this was what the humans called Fate. He could…

No. She would not regain consciousness before they reached their ship, and besides, the others were all around. If he released Aran, they would kill both of them before she got two yards.

_Then there must be something I can do…_

The trooper was so wrapped in his thoughts, he did not notice the troopers around him had stopped moving until he heard the screaming of the ship entering the moon's atmosphere. Opening his eyes and looking up, he noticed the strangest craft diving at him. The ship was a small, shallow hemisphere, made of white and silvery metals unknown to the Pirates. Most noticeably, a large, familiar cannon was raised out of the back of the ship's hull, and aiming towards the pirates.

PI-NTE-54672-Zeta leaped back from his comrades, as a blast of dark energy struck the ground they stood on. Tendrils of the black energy wove up from the ground, freezing the pirates to the spot before they could realize what was going on. Then, as the ship drew closer, a series of missiles appeared from a side-mounted launcher. Each pirate that was struck shattered instantly.

The ship managed a few more blasts from the dark beam and seeker missile launcher before swooping close to the ground, at which point a figure leapt down, landing nimbly on the surface of the moon. Before the pirates could mobilize, it fired a series of white-hot light energy blasts, instantly incinerating its targets. Before the mysterious assailant could fire again, the pirates had scattered and were moving in towards their antagonist. Undaunted, the strange alien took aim with its weapon once more, and fired a strange blast that instantly knocked every aerotrooper out of the sky, killing a few ground troops to boot.

The squad commander of the ground troops hung back, barking order after order to his underlings to break themselves against the alien's relentless onslaught. He heard a voice behind him, yelling, "Commander! Behind you!"

Spinning around, all the commander could see was 54672-Zeta. "What is it?!" he spat. "Why did you call me?"

"I'd like to keep my honor. I wanted to shoot you in the face rather than the back," the trooper replied, releasing a blast straight into his commanding officer.

One pirate had seen the treacherous act, and his cries of "traitor!" drew the attention of others. They leveled their weapons at the rogue trooper and the limp form he carried. But before they could open fire, a missile to the back sent one of them flying; and the rest found themselves turned around again, fighting off the alien's onslaught even while trying to get a shot at the traitor.

Soon, the pirates were divided and confused. The rogue trooper deftly dodged their attacks, defending the one he had once called an enemy from those he had once called friends. From the other side, the mysterious assailant tore through their ranks, pressing relentlessly towards the rogue and the hunter he so zealously protected.

Soon, the rogue trooper and alien antagonist faced each other in the center of a field covered in pirate remains. The battle was over; the newcomer had wiped out every enemy but this one, who cradled Samus in his arms. PI-NTE-54672-zeta glanced down at the woman he carried, and thought he caught a glimpse of her eyes cracking open. She peered at him, confused, for a moment before unconsciousness consumed her. He looked back up, keeping his weapon trained on the newcomer,resolved to protect Samus to the best of his ability.

"Give her to me," the alien called, aiming its mysterious weapon. "I'd rather not kill you, seeing how you turned to fight on the right side; however, if you refuse to surrender her, I can kill you without scathing her."

"Who are you?" The trooper said, spitting the words bluntly. He was not used to speaking, and when he did speak, it was candid and to the point.

"Give me Samus."

"How do you know Aran?"

"I have no need to explain myself to you," the alien said, charging its weapon. "Will you or will you not surrender her?"

The pirate studied the alien for a moment longer, then set Samus down on the moon's surface and backed away slowly. The alien appeared surprised for a moment, but quickly overcame its initial shock, and approached Aran, still keeping its weapon trained on the pirate. When he reached her, the mysterious figure stooped down and gently picked up her unconscious form. He backed away, his eyes never leaving the pirate. At last, he arrived at the door to his ship, which had landed just a few meters away. He stood there for a moment, and then called out to his antagonist.

"Thank you."

He turned and swept into the ship. The door promptly slammed shut behind him, and the vessel was in the air in a second.

PI-NTE-54672-zeta looked up at the ship as it thundered away from the moon. He then lay back and shut his eyes, not knowing how long it would take for someone to find him, nor knowing what they would do when they did.


	5. Savior

"This is the _Oberon_!" Connehan growled. "What the hell is going on down there!"

"Sir, this is the _Iliad_ again. Sorry, but we can't help you there. A thick haze on the moon is giving us problems with our long-range detection gear."

"Wonderful," Connehan sighed. "So we have no way of knowing what's–"

"Sir!" The _Illiad's_ com officer called. "Alien vessel has taken off from the planet. The pirate frigate is still there."

"What?" Connehan turned to one of the techies. "Give me a trajectory on the alien ship."

"It looks like it's heading right towards us," the techie replied.

"What do you mean, 'looks like'? Is it heading towards us or not?"

"It is," the techie sighed. "I doubt it's hostile; I'm not detecting anything that looks like an active weapon system."

"Oh, so that huge cannon on its back doesn't count as a weapon?"

"Not an active one, sir," the techie answered, glaring at him. "The cannon appears to be receiving no power."

"What do you mean, 'appears' to be?"

Before the techie could respond, the radio flashed open. "Federation vessel," came a strange, light voice. "I have Samus Aran, and am proceeding to dock with you."

Connehan pounced the mic button. "This is commander Connehan of the GFS _Oberon_, he yelled. "Who is this?"

"You don't have to yell, Connehan. The speakers on this ship work fine."

"You didn't answer me."

"I am R-Stl, son of Luminoth warriors J-Stl and B-Stl."

Connehan turned to a techie. "Check that."

"Already on it, sir," the techie said. "J-Stl and B-St; were two Luminoth keybearers Samus scanned while she was on Aether. Also, the cannon on the vessel bears similarities to the Luminoth Dark Beam Aran used on Aether. It seems he's a Luminoth, alrighty."

Connehan turned back to the microphone. "The Luminoth," he said. "I can't say I'm not happy to see you, but I didn't think the Luminoth would be in this corner of space."

"It's a long story, commander," R-Stl sighed. "One that doesn't bear telling now. Samus is fine as far as I can tell, but she's unconscious. And I think there's a problem with her suit."

"A problem? What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure. I understand her suit has undergone some major changes since she last visited Aether, but still… something's wrong, I'm sure of it."

Connehan turned to a lieutenant. "Get a medical team and someone who knows something about Aran's suit to meet R-Stl at the docking port."

The lieutenant nodded and ran off as Connehan turned back to the mic. "R-Stl, let me be the first to thank you for–"

"Later, Connehan," the Luminoth cut him off. "I'm about to dock. Be sure you're ready to help Samus."

The mic clicked off. Connehan looked around at the others on the bridge, sighed, and ran towards the docking bay.

* * *

The side of the strange ship opened, and a tall, sleek figure emerged, carrying the limp form of Samus in his arms. The medical team ready to cart Samus away spent a moment staring at the alien's strange form before they realized he had placed her on the stretcher they were carrying. Connehan, too, was awed by the tall stranger. He had seen Luminoth pictures while studying Aran's old mission reports, but the actual presence of such a powerful being filled him with a feeling like no other.

"Jacobs," muttered.

The young man standing next to Connehan cocked his head in acknowledgment. Kevin Jacobs was a young biologist who had just joined the Federation. Connehan had never heard of him before, but he must be useful because he had been selected to help out with Samus's suit.

"Jacobs, go with the medical team," Connehan whispered. "If there's something wrong with her suit, we need to get it off her, and figure out how to fix it."

Kevin nodded, and joined the team that was carrying the unconscious bounty hunter away.

Connehan turned to the alien. "R-Stl," he said. "We can't thank you enough for helping Samus."

"I find that strange," R-Stl replied coldly, "Since just an hour ago, I picked up a news report saying you were investigating her for high treason."

Connehan felt himself sweating. So that was why R-Stl had acted so cold over the radio. "Recent developments have rendered the evidence against Aran and her computer null and void."

"Recent developments meaning she helped save your sorry asses from a surprise attack by the space pirates."

Connehan took a slow breath. "I'm sorry that you seem to have gained such a poor first impression of our Federation, R-Stl. I hope we are able to gain your respect."

R-Stl didn't respond. Instead, he said, "My ship is low on energy. I would appreciate it if you would host me while it recharges."

"Of course," Connehan said. "We'll return to base and begin recharging it immediately."

R-Stl glided down the hall a ways, using his strange abilities, before turning to Connehan. "My mother and father were killed by the Ing horde. Samus avenged them. ..I did not appreciate seeing her be dishonored by bureaucratic squabbling."

"That is a weakness of the Federation," Connehan sighed. "One I have been prone to myself. At present, however, Samus's welfare is our only concern, and we have you to thank for the fact that she is alive."

R-Stl nodded. "Perhaps we can yet be friends, Connehan," he said, before turning and gliding out of sight.


	6. All Goes Wrong

Jacobs hooked up all variety of tubes and wires to the unconscious Samus, but he didn't need the sophisticated electronic equipment of the _Oberon_'s medical lab to tell him something was wrong with Samus's suit. A small patch of black pigment had appeared as they were carrying her through the halls to the lab, originating near the center of her torso, and expanding outwards. Jacobs feared it was a virus of some kind, meant to disrupt the power suit, if not Samus herself.

They came into the lab, and the stretcher was instantly surrounded by doctors.

"What's her status?" the chief asked.

"She's been wounded by several Pirate weapons," one of the EMTs replied. "Her suit protected her body, but drained enough energy in the process to knock her unconscious."

"It's possible she's lapsed into a coma," Jacobs said.

"I seriously doubt that," the EMT replied, casting a glare at him from across the stretcher. They lifted Samus's inert form onto a table. "The suit drained her energy, but the pirate's weapons knocked her out."

"Who are you, anyway?" the chief asked, looking at Jacobs.

"Kevin Jacobs, Federation biologist. I was sent because I was the closest man with knowledge on Aran's suit."

"The suit?" the chief asked. "So you're going to explain that to us?" he said, pointing to the patch of black that now covered most of the suit's torso.

"It's probably a virus," Jacobs said. "I'll have to double-check it with your equipment. But in any case, I suggest we get it off her quickly."

"Agreed." The medical personnel and Jacobs removed Samus's suit, piece by piece, until she had only her blue jumpsuit. Jacobs gathered up he components and took them to another table, while the medics continued work on Samus.

He slid a piece of the suit that was already infected—a small plate taken from the left elbow joint—under the beam of a microscope, and looked into the eyepiece. He wasn't sure just what to make of what he saw. It was a virus, as he had hypothesized, but it was nothing like anything he had seen before. The pirates had definitely engineered it, probably for this one attack. They were doing something to Samus's suit.

Jacobs opened his personal recorder. "Logfile 071. Samus Aran has been attacked by Space Pirates on the moon of Aliehs III. The pirates initially tried kidnapping her; I think what I'm dealing with now is their contingency plan. When they failed to abduct Aran, due to Luminoth intervention, someone took advantage of the fray to insert a bio-weapon into the suit itself. It's a scorched-earth style philosophy; if they can't have the fusion suit, nobody can."

He zoomed in on some of the infected cells in the suit's organic components. "What the bio-weapon itself is supposed to do is unclear. It seems to be a virus at its core; it infects cells, takes over their reproductive faculties to make more viruses. But it's also causing the creation of more cells. It's like a cancer-inducing virus."

He sighed, and sat back. "But it's not even that simple. The cancerous cells being produced aren't spreading the way a normal tumor does. They appear to be forming into a pattern. Fibers and structures are forming. Whatever's going on, the suit is expending a great deal of energy trying to support it. It's like..." he looked down the eyepiece again. "Like the suit's growing, only it's growing something inside, that it was never meant to have..."

He sighed, shook his head, and reached for a few tools. "Irrelevant. I've wasted enough time on speculation. If nothing else, this 'cancer' is filling the space Aran would normally occupy, and I don't think she'd be to happy about it. I'm going to find an antibody to stop the cancer-inducing virus, then surgically remove all the new growths."

He set a scanner above the infected component when he felt a hand on his arm. It was the chief medical officer. "How's it going?" he asked.

"It's hard to say just yet," Jacobs said. "I'm trying to analyze the viral structure and try to synthesize an antibody."

"I'll help you," the doctor said. He brought up an organic synthesizer from beneath the table.

"Aren't you needed to help Aran?" Jacobs asked, not looking up from the scan.

"We've got her stable," the doctor replied. "There are a few minor burns from the pirate weapons, but other than that, and a concussion, she was in pretty good shape. She's still out, and will be for another hour or so, but she'll be fine when she wakes up."

"Excellent," Jacobs replied. The scanner beeped. "All right, we've got some of the viral structure," he called. "Now let's get to work on an antibody." He pulled the data crystal from the scanner and popped it into the synthesizer. The machine began to whir.

"So what's going on, exactly?" the doctor asked, examining the plate. "What are all these growths?"

"As near as I can tell, it's a form of cancer," Jacobs replied. "But it's very unusual. It's causing new tissues to grow and develop. I'm reluctant to call those tissues tumors, since they seem to be growing in a fixed pattern."

The medical officer nodded. "Sort of like a newborn baby developing in the womb."

Jacobs looked up. "What was that?"

"Nothing," the doctor replied, as the synthesizer beeped. "OK, we've got an antibody candidate. Are you going to try it on this part?"

"Might as well," Jacobs replied. He prepared a syringe. "All right, here we go."

He injected the fluid containing the new antibodies into the infected component, then slid it back under the microscope.

"Anything?" the doctor asked.

Jacobs hesitated a second, then shook his head. "No. The antibodies are ineffectual. There's a small flaw in the structure, enough to prevent them from correctly interacting with the virus."

"Well, we'll try again," the doctor said, plugging the updated data into the synthesizer. "We can't slow down."

Jacobs nodded, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

The second antibody was ready much sooner than the first had been. Jacobs filled a clean syringe and injected it into the elbow plate, and slid the plate under the microscope once more.

"Well?"

Jacobs let out a sigh of relief. "All right! The virus is being destroyed, and the cancer cells have stopped reproducing."

The doctor smiled. "Good. Now let's see about moving those new growths."

"Later," Jacobs said, standing up. "The space pirates knew there was a chance we could stop their virus, so they would have designed it to work fast. We need to inoculate all the suit components before we do any surgery, just to make sure the virus doesn't have a chance to finish its job."

"All right," the doctor replied. "Where are the other components?"

Jacobs looked around. "What? They were right here beside me..." his eyes landed on something, and he trailed off. The doctor followed his gaze, and gaped in amazement.

The infected components had somehow moved. The were coming together on the floor. Tiny, multitudinous appendages, part of the new growths caused by the virus, moved them across the ground, aligning the parts with each other as they would when being worn by Samus. The tissues inside each component filled the suit completely, and now, tiny tendrils snaked out from each part to the others, connecting themselves. The cancer had now formed the equivalent of a human body inside the suit.

"What's going on?" the doctor asked.

Before Jacobs could even think of a response, the answer became clear. The fusion suit sat up and lifted its arm cannon.

Jacobs, the chief, and everyone in the room dove for cover as the suit opened fire. The chief grabbed at the communicator on his waist. "Security team to sickbay! Don't ask how, but Aran's suit has gone renegade. Repeat, Aran's suit has somehow gained sentience and is shooting at us!"

"So this was the pirates' plan," Jacobs said as the chief shut off the communicator. "If they couldn't take the suit..."

"You mean they designed that virus to transform the suit into a living creature?" the chief asked, yelling to be heard over the sounds of cannon fire.

"They probably gave it a program to be entirely loyal to them, also," Jacobs replied. "If we can't stop it, it'll try to escape, find any remaining pirates, and then they'll have the technology of the power suit."

"It doesn't seem possible!" the chief shouted. "How could they have engineered a virus that could do all this? Give the suit life _and_ sentience _and_ loyalty to their cause?"

"Possible or not, it is happening!" Jacobs said. "We've got to stop it here!"

"We can't!" the chief yelled back. "The Pirates have been trying to kill Aran ever since her first Zebes adventure without success! You think we'll be able to defeat the suit that was protecting her?!"

Jacobs risked a peek around the table they were hiding behind. "I think you may be giving the suit too much credit! Look!"

The suit, now pitch black and appearing very different, continued firing to keep the lab's personnel out of its way, but its own movements were sluggish. It was all but crawling towards the door.

"Why's it going so slowly?" the chief asked, as they ducked behind the table once more to avoid a power beam shot.

"It just expended vast amounts of energy! Keep in mind, it just grew its own muscular and nervous systems!" Jacobs yelled back.

"But still, its armor and weapons are much stronger than anything we can handle!" the chief said. "We don't stand a–" he broke off suddenly, and his eyes widened.

"What is it?" Jacobs shouted.

The chief hit his communicator again. "Security team en route to sickbay! When you get here, aim at the target's left elbow joint! Repeat, aim for the left elbow joint!"

"What's so special about the left elbow joint?" Jacobs asked as the chief shut off the communicator again.

"You're holding it!"

Jacobs looked down at the plate in his hand, which they had tested the antibodies on. A slow look of realization crossed his face, just as the door burst open and a security team came in, guns blazing.

The suit took several direct hits to the left elbow, and slumped to the ground.

The chief jumped up. "Yes! Excellent!"

Jacobs got to his feet slowly. "That was... fast."

"To create a life-form that quickly would require extreme efficiency," the chief said. "No room for redundancy or back-ups. If anything fails, everything fails. If the left elbow goes, the fusion suit goes."

Jacobs looked over the chief's shoulder. "Speaking of the fusion suit going..."

The remains of the suit were lying in a tangled mess on the floor. Burn marks, both from the Pirate attack on Samus and the security team's attack on the suit itself, were all over the already black fibers. Part of the suit was ripped open and bleeding disgusting liquids from the tear. The the new tissues had fused, twisted, and stuck inside the suit. At a glance, nobody could tell just how extensive the damage was, but it was a safe bet that it would never function again.

Jacobs and the chief looked at the suit, then at the unconscious Samus, then each other.

"She is not going to like this," was all Jacobs could think to say.


	7. Oh yeah, it's dead

"They did WHAT to my suit?!" Samus screamed.

Connehan wiped her spit off his face. He knew Samus would react poorly to the news, but he was beginning to wish he had thought to strap her down before waking her.

Jacobs was standing behind him—although it was more akin to hiding behind him. He looked around Connehan's imposing form to catch a glimpse of Samus. She was dressed in her blue jumpsuit, which he guessed she always wore under the power suit. It was odd; here was this famous bounty hunter, but here, she looked like nothing more than a regular woman. A blonde one, at that. Even so, Jacobs was doing everything he could to stay on her good side—and considering his involvement in the destruction of her suit, he was failing.

"I'm sorry, Samus," Connehan said, "but it was the only way..."

Samus slumped against the bed in the medical bay. "You can't be serious," she growled.

Jacobs peeked around Connehan's side. "He's right, you know," he said. "If the security detail didn't stop your suit, it would have escaped to the pirates."

"We just blasted the last of the pirates," Samus grumbled. "There's nothing left for it to return to."

"Well," Jacobs said, biting his lip, "Though we comfortably beat the pirates, at least a few ships did escape. Besides, we had always thought that the last of the pirates were destroyed along with Zebes, but they were here today, weren't they? There could still be more in reserve, who were supposed to receive the suit if it made it out. The escaped ships may have joined with them."

Samus glared up at him. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"Wait, wait," Connehan interrupted, looking over his shoulder at Jacobs. "The remaining pirates would have received the suit _i__f_ it made it out? I thought stealing the suit was the whole point."

"That was..." Jacobs thought for a moment. "That would have been a nice perk, I believe. But they knew the chances of the suit making it out alive were slim to none. Even though it is heavily armed and armored, it would be left weak after effectively growing a body. This is what allowed us to beat it, and they knew about it."

"Wait," Samus said. "So you mean it _wasn't_ necessary to..."

"No, no," Jacobs said quickly, drawing even further behind Connehan. "We had to kill it, or it would've escaped somehow."

"Then what was the pirate's main plan?" Connehan asked.

"They included a failsafe in the retrovirus," Jacobs explained. "If the suit did die, the retrovirus was supposed to destroy it even more. It had already twisted the suit's original functions and controls to work with the new body; when it sensed the suit dying, it simply destroyed the originals altogether. There's no way we could get your suit to work now."

Samus sighed. "So the point of it all was..."

"To cripple you," Jacob finished. "Stealing the suit would have been just a perk—if it had worked out."

Samus looked away, biting her lip. "Tell me you can fix it."

"I..." Jacobs shook his head. "I'm sorry, Samus, but I can't."

In the next instant, Samus was sitting up, with her fist extended; Jacobs was lying on the floor, blood trickling out of his nose. He sat up and rubbed it tenderly. "Ow," he said.

Connehan turned to Samus. "Punching the biologist won't help," he said.

"Says you," Samus retorted, lying back down.

Jacobs stood up, still rubbing his nose. "I'm sorry, Samus, but there's nothing more we can do."

Samus nodded. "I understand."

Jacobs bit his lip. "I... I'm sorry it had to be this way."

Samus nodded, still looking away from him.

A nervous-looking young man looked into the room. "Excuse me, officer Connehan?"

"What is it, ensign?" Connehan sighed.

"We've retrieved the black box from Aran's crashed ship," the ensign said. "It was floating in space along with some debris."

Samus sat up. "The black box? Is Adam...?"

"We don't know yet," the ensign said quickly. "We haven't activated it yet; I thought you'd want to be informed before we did."

Connehan looked down at Samus. "You feel well enough to move?"

"Of course," Samus said, getting up.

Connehan nodded at Jacobs. "Come along, Jacobs; we may be needing you." He looked at the young man. "Ensign, contact R-Stl and tell him to meet us in the conference room."

"R-Stl?" Samus asked as she began to follow Connehan out of the medical bay.

"A Luminoth warrior who rescued you from the pirates," Jacobs answered, hurrying after them.

Samus glanced at him. "Luminoth? All the way out here? We're a bit far from Aether, aren't we?"

"We haven't had a chance to ask him what he's doing here yet," Jacobs said. "We were a bit more concerned with the power suit that was shooting at us."

Samus sighed. "You're sure he's the one who saved me?"

Connehan and Jacobs exchanged a glance. "Of course," Connehan said. "He brought you up on his ship, after all."

"We were both there," Jacobs added. "And I didn't see anyone else on the ship who could have done it."

"Nor did I," Connehan finished. "Why do you ask?"

Samus bit her lip. "It's... I don't know." She took a breath. "I was unconscious for most of the fight, but I seem to remember a... a pirate."

Connehan shrugged, opening the door to the conference room. "Well, there was an entire frigate's worth of pirates down there, so I'm not..."

"No," Samus interrupted. "A rogue pirate. He turned on his fellows and started fighting to protect me..." she shook her head. "I was still fading in and out of consciousness at the time, so I could be mistaken, but I..."

They entered the room, Connehan and Jacobs exchanging another worried glance. "We'll have to talk to R-Stl about it," he said in a low voice. "But later. Right now, the computer—Adam—should be our top priority."

"Agreed," Jacobs replied.

Connehan, Jacobs, and Samus took their seats. R-Stl was already there, seated cross from them; he bowed to Samus as she arrived. "Miss Aran," he spoke, his deep voice filtered through the room's master translator. "It's good to see you are well."

"Thank you," Samus said. "You must be R-Stl?"

"I am." He hesitated for a moment, then added, "I am the son of B-Stil and J-Stl."

Samus nodded. "I remember them. I never met them in life, but I know they were valiant warriors. They cared deeply for each other as well."

R-Stl simply nodded in reply, then looked over at a nearby console. The black box from Samus's ship was lying on top of it; a few techies were stringing cords from the console to plugs in the bright orange case.

"What is that thing?" R-Stl asked, pointing to the box.

"That's the black box," Connehan replied. "A flight recorder. It'll have data on what happened in Aran's ship before being shot down, in addition to a backed-up copy of the ship's computer, Adam."

"Black box?" R-Stl asked, confused.

"Er... yes," Connehan answered.

"But... it's orange."

"Of course," Connehan said. "That's so it can be easily spotted in a wreck."

"And you call it... black?"

"Well, yes. It's..." Connehan looked around at the others before shrugging. "It's a long story, I suppose."

R-Stl only sighed, shaking his head.

"We're done," a techie called, standing back from the console and brushing off his hands. "The computer-"

"Adam," Samus corrected.

"Adam, then," the techie said, with an apologetic nod toward Samus. "Adam should be able to see and hear us, and we can hear him. After we turn it on, that is."

"Do it," Connehan ordered.

The techie complied quickly, and the console began to whir to life.

Connehan hesitated for a moment. "Compu—er, Adam? Can you hear us?"

There was a moment's pause, followed by the loudest string of obscenities anyone in the room had ever heard. Connehan grimaced. "Adam, what's the matter?"

"Samus!" the computer spat, speaking through the large speakers on the console. "Did you see—she jettisoned me into space, and went and blew herself up! That—I swear, if she weren't dead, I'd kill her!"

"Adam," Samus said calmly, "The self-destruct failed. I'm still here."

The small camera mounted on the console turned slowly, focusing on Samus. There was another pause. "Well," Adam replied in his form of a grumble, "I'd kill you if I were able."

"And if there weren't several million failsafes in your system to prevent you from doing even if you were able," Jacobs added.

The camera focused on him. "Connehan, who is this?"

"Kevin Jacobs," Connehan said. "He's... well, not exactly an expert, but he was the only one around who knew anything about Samus's suit. So we brought him in when R-Stl said her suit was damaged."

"R-Stl?"

Jacobs pointed over to the Luminoth; the camera shifted around, focusing on the alien. "R-Stl is the son of J-Stl and B-Stl," he explained, "Two Luminoth warriors whose bodies Samus scanned on Aether."

"On... what?"

Connehan snapped his fingers. "That's right, I don't think that happened until after you died."

"Wait, wait," R-Stl interrupted. "He died?"

"Well, yeah. We brought him back, of course."

"But... he's a computer."

"Well... he wasn't always..." Connehan sighed. "You know, that's another long story."

R-Stl sighed again, shaking his head.

Adam let out the computerized equivalent of a sigh. "Connehan, I have important news."

"Samus and R-Stl have already filled us in on everything that's happened since-"

"Not on this, they haven't. This didn't happen until after I was jettisoned."

"What?" Connehan sat up. "But that's... you wouldn't have been functioning while jettisoned. You didn't have a power source, an interface, anything; you were just a backed-up computer disk floating through space."

"I know," Adam said, impatient. "But soon as you activated me, I discovered that something had been encoded in my data banks while I was out there. It's a message."

Samus stood up. "A message? From who?"

"It's 'whom'," Jacobs sighed.

"I..." Adam paused for a moment. "Lady, I think you'll believe me more if you see the message first."

Samus glanced at Connehan, who nodded. "All right, comp—Adam," he said. "Go ahead."

The screen above the console flickered to life, revealing a dangerous-looking—and all too familiar—face.

Samus's eyes widened. "You have to be kidding me."

Jacobs shook his head. "It can't be... it's not possible..."

The image on the screen grinned widely, its white teeth glistening up and down its elongated snout. "Hello, folks!" it hissed. "Surprised to see me? You didn't think Lord Ridley could be kept down so easily, could you?"

Samus swore aloud. "For the love of—why can't anything I blow up ever _stay_ blown up?!"


	8. The Cutting Room

_One hour before_

Ridley glanced back at one of the pirates on the bridge. "What should I say next?"

The pirate shrugged. "How should I know? This was your idea, wasn't-"

Ridley cut him off with a threatening growl; the pirate shut up instantly. Ridley looked back at the camera, realizing it had been recording all that. "Can you edit that out before we transmit it?"

"Of course," a different pirate said. "We're encoding this into the files of Samus's black box, after all, so we-"

"I _know _what we're doing!" Ridley hissed. The other pirate shut up as Ridley looked back at the camera again, grinning widely. "You're probably wondering how I came back," he said to the people who would receive the message in a few hours. "Well, I'll be happy to tell you. After all, I owe it all to you—you and, more importantly, the X."

Ridley looked around the bridge, and all the pirates nodded to indicate their approval. He smiled to himself, then went on.

"It was very smart of you to 'collect' my carcass from Zebes shortly after Samus killed me. After all, that would prevent me from being brought back for, what, the third time?"

"Fourth, sir," a pirate called.

Ridley rolled his eyes. "Fourth time?" He signaled the pirates to cut out the mistake. "And it succeeded—for a while, at least, until my subjects finally tracked me down." His smile widened. "Think about it. Those X-infected pirates on the BSL station? Let me tell you, not all of them were mimicked from frozen corpses. No, we had living breathing spies aboard the station, readying an operation to retrieve my body. At least, until the X broke out; then it became less like _spies_ and more like a _spy_."

He paused for effect, although his pirates failed to feel any effect at all.

"But, even alone, even after the X infected and crumbled my body, he fulfilled his duty; he collected my remains and escaped from the station. And so, my remains were finally retrieved. But as it turned out, we got much more than that. The scientists working to revive me discovered some dormant X that remained in my nervous system—X that were soon removed and isolated. So, not only was I revived, but we now had a culture of a species so dangerous, the Metroids themselves were conceived only to hunt them."

He smiled even wider. The pirates in the room were a bit disturbed that his mouth could stretch that far, and wondered if they could somehow edit that out before transmitting it.

"What would you do with such a powerful organism? I'll tell you what we did: We made a present, and set up a delivery—a delivery that would get our present straight to miss Aran herself." He leaned into the screen. "By now, you've probably gotten this present, but even if you haven't, there's nothing you could do to stop it. It took a great deal of time and effort to devise a retro-virus from the X-parasite DNA we had, but in the end, we accomplished our goals quite nicely. The new virus would grow, control, and mimic like an X, but it wouldn't have its own mind—it would do only what we told it to do—and what's more, it was immune to the Metroid vaccine present in the Fusion suit."

Ridley paused, letting himself imagine a young federation biologist hitting his head as he realized the connection between the X and the virus he had failed to stop.

"As for the delivery," he went on, "Why, it's happening right now, as I'm recording this message. That's the only reason we attacked; to draw out Samus, isolate her, and infect her suit with the virus—unless, of course, we could successfully kill or capture her in the process." He glanced at a monitor, showing the pirate frigate descending toward the surface of Aliehs III's moon. "Whether or not Samus has survived the attack, I can't tell yet—but by the time this message is received, her suit will definitely be indisposed regardless of her own fate. And so, the one thing, the _only_ thing, separating the pirates from the glory we deserve has been completely robbed of her power. And we're back in business."

He looked around the room. "What else should I say?"

"Not much more," a pirate said. "It's still possible they could spoil our plans if they learn too much about them."

Ridley sighed. "Fine."

"...but I suppose you could gloat a _little_," the pirate said, trying not to roll his eyes.

"Oh, good," Ridley said, his smile returning. He looked back at the screen. "Now, you needn't worry about us—yet. We need some time to recuperate after this battle; it's not like we're made of troopers for you guys to kill. And besides, we need time to learn about our new friend, the X." He leaned closer to the camera. "But rest assured, we'll be back, to claim what's ours—what has always been ours by right. The Galactic Federation has forgotten us; it's time to teach them fear again."

He leaned back, and began laughing madly, spreading his wings and flexing his claws for extra effect. After about thirty second, he stopped and looked at one of the pirates. "Was that enough?"

"Yeah," the pirate replied. "We'll patch together the best bits of the maniacal laughter to get something really fear-inducing."

"Good, good," Ridley said. "And you'll edit out all the stupid bits?"

"Of course. We'll do what we can to touch things up a bit to make you seem even more over-dramatic."

"Excellent," Ridley hissed, grinning. "You can never be too over-dramatic." He turned, his dangerous tail sweeping behind him, and left, the massive doors swishing open before him and shut behind him.

"Isn't over-dramatic, by definition, too over-dramatic?" one pirate asked the first.

"Well... um... I guess if you..." the pirate shook his head. "We don't have time to deconstruct syntax right now. We have to edit this video before we send it."

"Aww," another pirate sighed. "Do we really have to?"

"Yeah," the first grumbled, "because if Lord Ridley even _thinks_ we've skimped on him, he'll leave us face-down in a pool of our own boiling blood."

The other pirate groaned. "Wonderful. Well, let's get to work..."

* * *

The video ended. "That's it," Adam said.

The room was completely silent for a moment.

"Well, crap," Jacobs said at last.

"I... have to admit, that was quite a maniacal laugh," R-Stl said meekly.

Connehan rubbed his temples. "I want options, people."

"You don't have any," a techie said.

Jacobs nodded in agreement. "Ridley said that the pirates needed to rebuild their forces. They were still recovering from the last Zebes raid when they used a lot of resources in this last-ditch attempt to disable Samus. All in all, they're probably at their weakest right now." He shifted in his seat. "But we can't press our advantage. Even if we could find the new pirate base, experience shows that it'd be too well protected for an attack from space. The only way we've been able to take down pirate bases in the past is by infiltrating them." He looked over at Samus. "And the one person capable of doing that just had her suit destroyed."

Samus narrowed her eyes.

"We'll have to bring on another hunter," Connehan said at last. "Samus, normally, would be the very best one for the job, but without the suit, she'd barely survive the environmental extremes of most planets, let alone a direct hit from a pirate weapon."

"I could survive," Samus complained. "Just not very long."

Connehan sighed. "I hate to do it, but... we'll have to find out who else is available. Maybe Noxus, or-"

"Actually..." Jacobs started, but dropped off.

Every eye in the room turned to him. "What is it?" Samus prompted.

Jacobs's face began to redden, and he looked at his feet. "I... have an idea. But it's not a good one..."

Connehan looked around, and let out one more exasperated sigh. "Well, that's better than anything else we've got. Let's hear it."

"It's really not a good one," Jacobs repeated.

"Yet it seems to be our only one," R-Stl answered.

Jacobs fell silent for a moment, then looked up at Samus. "How do you feel about having your DNA screwed with?"

Samus stared at him for a moment, bit her lip, then sighed. "Heck, why not? Wouldn't be the first time, and probably not the last, either."


	9. The Aliens

The pirate trooper formerly called PI-NTE-54672-zeta grimaced as he filed the serial numbers off his weapon, armor, and exoskeleton. It didn't really hurt to be grinding the numbers that comprised his name off his own skin, but he could imagine what it would be like if he hadn't shot himself with a stun pistol in that area first.

_Necessity is the mother of invention,_ he thought. In the absence of any kind of anesthesia, a stun pistol made an effective—if dangerous—replacement.

At last, the final 'zeta' had vanished from his arm. He stood, flexing his smooth, unmarked limbs, silhouetted in the strange glow that covered the moon. Now that he had removed the one thing that set him apart from all the other troopers—while at the same time the one thing that made him exactly the same as them all—he had another task to perform. Since the strange alien had taken Aran, he had lain on the scorched battlefield among all his fallen comrades before getting up to file off his designation—just one of many bodies, eyes turned up to the sky. The lucky ones died intact. Many more had been shattered by missiles or incinerated by the light beam.

Bodies everywhere. The trooper intended to do something about that.

As he started piling up the bodies, he thought on the alien. He had recognized the visitor's weapons first, before its species. The massive cannon on the back of its ship was a dark beam, similar to the one the Pirates had set up to open dark portals in their Aether base. The other weapons resembled ones Samus had later used against the pirates: the white flashes that incinerated all they touched came from the light beam, and the massive explosion that downed their aerial troops was called the sonic boom. All the weapons came from Aether, and so the pirate assumed that his mysterious antagonist had as well.

But that wasn't all. The pirate had recognized the shape of the alien's body, and suddenly remembered two more he had seen like it. The trooper thought back to the Aether base, where he himself had been created, and raised. As he patrolled the corridors of the desert base, he had seen no fewer than two alien bodies—one male, one female. They lay there, giving silent testimony to the mysterious conflict that had rocked Aether long before the pirates found it and its rich deposits of phazon. The base had been built around the bodies, and they had not been touched nor moved since they were found. Normally, the pirates believed that the dead should serve the living, not hinder them—but for some reason, these two bodies seemed to threaten retribution for any disrespect, and the pirates were loathe to even be near them, let alone touch them

The pirate shook his head. He didn't like thinking about Aether. It was ill fortune that brought them there at all; they had gotten some phazon, true, but the prices they paid for it were heavy beyond belief. And as if that weren't enough, his own personal existence there had been wracked with shame; not because of something he did, but because of something those who created him failed to do. The phazon infusion was given to him as soon as he had enough blood vessels for it to beat through, and kept receiving infusions for most of his time on Aether. And yet, nothing. His body rejected the phazon, the very substance that made some pirates into weapons of mass destruction, but left him no better off than any of the nameless grunts mowed down by the pirates' numerous enemies.

His mind returned to the present as he looked around the battlefield and found no more remains to add to his pile. Every dead pirate on the field, every shard from a shattered body, every ash that had once walked and fired a weapon, was now in his massive heap. He looked up at it, and let out a breath. He was almost done. He reached to his side, and flicked on a small recording device—something given to the troopers just in case they ever needed it.

"I'd like those in command to know what this is," he said. "If, of course, they find this device. What you are looking at is the remains of those who volunteered in a last-ditch effort to disable Samus Aran. Each one of these troopers thought they would lose their lives—and, as it turned out, they did. Samus was injected with the retrovirus, but was then rescued—and all these brave soldiers were killed."

He took a breath.

"And I am largely responsible for their deaths.

"I'm not the only one, of course; I could never have taken them all myself. But, when the other alien arrived, I took advantage of the confusion and we trapped them between us." He looked down. "They fought bravely, and were overcome only by treachery.

"I have given these warriors a funeral befitting their deeds," he said. "As for myself, I am on the run. You may not find me for some time, but if you do eventually track me down, I should be executed in the manner granted to a traitor." He paused for a moment. "Catch me if you can."

He turned the recording device off, and laid it down on the ground far from the pile. He then looked at the mass of bodies, charged his weapon, and fired. The entire pile was suddenly engulfed in flames, hungrily lapping at the fallen soldiers as they spread across their bodies.

The bright flames illuminated the ground much more than the eerie glow that normally covered the moon. The pirate looked around at the things now covered in the yellows and oranges of the pyre; the scorched soil, the patches of vegetation, the pirates' frigate...

The frigate...

The pirate's eyes widened as he stared at the ship. _I wonder,_ he thought to himself, _did they make me this stupid, or did I get that way myself?_

In any case, he started walking toward the frigate, hoping that he wasn't _so_ stupid that he couldn't figure out how to fly it—and escape from this empty moon.

* * *

_  
I was supposed to be doing research,_ R-Stl thought to himself. _I was supposed to be doing research..._

As he followed Dr. Kevin Jacobs and Samus Aran down the halls of the GFS _Oberon_, all R-Stl could think about was that, initially, he was supposed to be doing research.

U-Mos was not going to be happy.

The Luminoth were a peace-loving people, but the Ing war had hardened some of their hearts. There had been a great deal of debate over what to do with the weapons and armor created to fight the children of darkness. Many wanted to keep them, to prevent the Luminoth from ever being caught off-guard again; still others wished to abandon them and all they represented, and concentrate their efforts on healing the wounded land of Aether. And R-Stl, the orphan son of two who had died as warriors, had no idea which side he was on; did he perpetuate the lifestyle that had led to their deaths, or lose his chance to ever follow in their footsteps?

R-Stl's first memories were not of his mother or father. They were of the face of U-Mos, as the Guardian of Aether began waking the Luminoth from the stasis pods where they had slept since word came that the three temples had fallen to the Ing. R-Stl was confused and lost in those first few hours of consciousness; he could not remember anything before the war, and so leaving the stasis pod was, for him, like being born, only without the warm hands of a mother to hold you afterward. It took some time for U-Mos to realize who this child was, and exactly what had happened to his parents. It pained the young Guardian to tell this infant that his parents weren't around, that they were never going to come back—that he would, in effect, never get a chance to see them, at all.

And so, many years later, the son of J-Stl and B-Stl was sent out to do research on a moon that had a planetary energy source similar to the Light of Aether.

R-Stl had never complained aloud about his life as a scientist. After all, there was little else to do. The phazon meteor, and the Ing themselves, had dealt such great damage on the lands of Aether that all the Luminoth seemed to do was try to heal it. But secretly, he loathed the job; not because he didn't like what he did, but because it felt so inadequate, especially after his parents had made the ultimate sacrifice during the war that he had more or less slept through. Here he was, the son of two Luminoth Keybearers, studying flora and fauna right alongside everybody else. As a result, he became introverted, and, while not exactly cold, was less than happy to be with those that should have been his friends.

He didn't exactly jump forward when they asked for volunteers to explore the galaxy. But he did want to join in. The premise was that the Light of Aether could probably be used to accelerate the planet's recovery, but it would be difficult to experiment with it on such a large scale. Luminoth astronomers had found many smaller planets and moons, among them the only satellite of Aliehs III, that had planetary energy sources similar to the Light, and so they wished to send out scientists to study these planets and learn all they could about the Light of Aether—or, as it were, the Light of Dangbri, the Light of Sevror II, or the Light of Aliehs III's moon. This was a chance to get away from society, and have some time to himself. R-Stl was already withdrawn emotionally from the Luminoth; why not withdraw physically as well?

But there was another reason. The Luminoth in favor of keeping the weapons from the war used this opportunity to remind those against it that no Luminoth had left Aether since the time before they had even settled on the planet. There was no telling what was out there, or what the scientists chosen to do research might run into—and what they might need protection from. The other side finally relented, and all the research vessels bound to leave the planet were equipped with a dark beam and seeker missiles, and the scientists who piloted them were each given a veritable arsenal of his own, to use or not use as he saw fit.

Perhaps R-Stl could never live up to his parent's legacy. But perhaps, by carrying some of the weapons they used to battle through Dark Aether, he could understand these people he had never met a little better—these people who were his parents.

Even so, R-Stl had never intended to actually use the weapons. But fortune, be it ill or good, led his small research vessel right to Samus Aran, who, like his parents, had only ever been a name to him, never a real person. And so it was that R-Stl rescued the woman who had fulfilled the duty his parents pursued to their graves.

It was an odd twist of fate, and he wasn't sure quite what it meant. But now that he was here, he was going to see things through.

Research would have to wait, and if U-Mos didn't like it, he knew where to shove it.


	10. Closing Doors

The doors to the lab swished open, allowing Kevin, Samus, and R-Stl entry. Samus looked around at the many strange instruments along the walls of the somewhat disorganized room. "You work here?" she surmised.

"For now," Jacobs said. He went to a computer console on the wall and began to boot it up. "Do me a favor, and guard the door, will you?"

Samus turned to look at him. "What for?" she asked.

Jacobs pressed his lips together. "I contacted a friend of mine and told him to meet us here, but... let's just say we won't want anyone else barging in on us." The console he was using began to whir to life. "Adam," he called, "You in there?"

The computer beeped affirmatively. "I'm here," Adam said. "What is this place?"

"This is my temporary lab aboard the _Oberon_," Jacobs explained. "Normally, I work out of a different ship, but Connehan assigned me this place when it became apparent I'd need it."

Samus stepped over to the door, glancing out into the hall beyond. "I hate to interrupt, Jacobs, but is there a point to this little story?"

Jacobs sighed. "I guess not."

R-Stl looked around the lab. The many devices and instruments were all alien to him, but similar enough to Luminoth tech that he understood many of their functions—and none of them seemed like they could be useful to help Samus. He turned to Jacobs. "What are we doing here?" he asked.

Before Jacobs could respond, Samus lifted her arm, signaling for silence. "Somebody's coming!" she hissed.

Jacobs silently darted to the door, and peered out into the hallway. He relaxed as he saw who it was that approached. "It's all right, Samus," he said softly. He leaned out of the door. "In here, Justin."

In a few moments, a young, lean man entered the room, towing a small crate on a hover pod behind him. His bright smile contrasted Jacobs's somber face, and his ruffled brown hair was at odds with the other's neat black head. Still, at the sight of the man, Jacobs seemed to relax a bit. "Hey, Justin," he said, extending his hand. "It's good to see you"

The man set the tow cable for the crate down and shook Jacobs's hand. "I was starting to get worried," he said brightly. "Connehan just swept off with you without a word."

"There was an emergency," Jacobs explained as their hands fell. "The _Oberon_ had to leave before I could get back on the _Zodiac_."

The newcomer turned to Samus, his green eyes twinkling brightly. "Ah! And here she is! The famous huntress!" He extended his hand with a flourish. "It's an honor, miss Aran."

Samus accepted his hand somewhat reluctantly, but she couldn't help but admire the man's enthusiasm. "And you are...?"

"This is my partner," Jacobs said. "Dr. Bailey."

"Please, call me Justin," Bailey said, releasing Samus's hand and stepping back.

R-Stl move forward. "Am I to assume that the contents of this crate are meant to help Samus?" he asked.

Bailey turned to the alien, and his eyes widened greatly; it took a moment for him to regain his composure and speak. "Ah yes, my dear Luminoth... that it is."

"Well, what is it?" Samus prompted.

Bailey glanced at Jacobs. "Erm... are you sure you want to show her... you know...?"

Samus also looked at Jacobs, her eyes narrowing. "What? What is it?"

"We don't have any choice," Jacobs said, ignoring her question. "But, Justin... I want you to leave first, and seal off the room behind you. I don't want anyone finding out what I'm about to do."

Bailey nodded. "Understandable." He put his hand on Jacobs's shoulder, smiling curtly. "Good luck, Kevin."

Jacobs nodded, and Justin turned and left. The door swished shut behind him.

Jacobs turned to the computer terminal that housed Adam. "All right," he said. "Disable all security sensors in here. This will be between the four of us."

"And Bailey," R-Stl said.

Jacobs pursed his lips. "I've known Justin a long time," he said. "We can trust him."

"And yet," Samus said, "You don't seem to trust _us_."

Adam beeped. "It's done, Jacobs. And she's right. You should tell us what's going on."

"I'm getting to it," Jacobs sighed. He turned to the crate Bailey had left behind. "I do trust you not to tell anyone. But I don't trust you not to explode when I show you what's in this crate."

Samus peered at him. "What do you mean?"

Jacobs didn't respond; he simply opened the crate and moved back, allowing Samus to step up and view the contents.

Her eyes widened as she peered at the small tank encased in the crate. "No," she whispered. "You can't be serious."

Jacobs merely pursed his lips, while R-Stl looked over Samus's shoulder at the writhing, gelatinous mass in the crate. "What... what is it?" he asked, feeling a need to keep his voice soft.

Jacobs simply replied: "An X-parasite."

* * *

Connehan glanced at his watch; it had been fifteen minutes since Jacobs led R-Stl and Samus out of the conference room. He looked around his small office and sighed heavily. Jacobs had left with a "request" that he and the others be left alone. Connehan had no idea why he made this demand, but the determination in Jacobs's eyes had left him with no choice; he knew the biologist wouldn't help Samus unless he could do so in secret. That knowledge didn't stop Connehan from wanting to give his eyeteeth to know what was going on, though.

A small ringing noise caught his attention. He pushed a button on his desk, and a small comm console rose from it, flashing with an incoming message. Connehan opened the line to see his comm officer on the other end. "What is it?" he sighed.

"Incoming call for you, sir," the man replied. "It's the admiral."

Connehan's eyes widened, but slowly. While he was sure the admiral would take an interest in the current situation, he hadn't expected to be contacted himself. He sat up, trying to quell his already small degree of nervousness. "Patch him through," he said.

The ensign's face vanished, replaced a moment later by that of Fleet Admiral Dane. "Connehan," the man said, his gruff baritone voice crackling through the speakers. "I was worried you hadn't made it through the attack."

Connehan smiled weakly. "I almost wish I hadn't, sir," he said. "We've got quite a mess to clean up here."

Dane nodded. "I'd heard about the destruction of Samus's suit already. It's going to be a tough obstacle to overcome, but we'll be able to get by without her."

Connehan shook his head. "I'm afraid I disagree, Admiral."

"And why is that?" Dane peered at Connehan through the viewscreen.

Connehan bit his lip. "You haven't been briefed on this, but less than twenty minutes ago, we found a message from Ridley."

Dane's eyes widened. "Ridley...?"

"He had encoded it in the hardware of the black box from Samus's ship. The computer, Adam, decoded and played it once we brought him online."

"But... Ridley?"

"Yes, Admiral," Connehan replied.

"Isn't he..."

"Not anymore, sir."

Dane swore aloud. "Why can't anything Samus blows up _stay_ blown up?!"

Connehan couldn't help but smile to himself.

"So, what did Ridley have to say for himself this time?" Dane growled.

"He was mostly gloating about disabling Samus," Connehan answered, his smile fading. "But he also hinted that he and the pirates are planning an attack from a new base of operations."

Dane's brow furrowed. "Figures. He didn't happen to give us a time frame for this attack, did he?"

"Nothing specific." Connehan shut his eyes. "He said they needed time to recuperate—this attack drained most of their remaining resources. But once they rebuild, now that Samus is out of the way..."

Dane shut his eyes. "It'd be just like before. The pirates ruling space through terror and extortion, and the Federation all but powerless to sop them."

Connehan nodded. He had memories of the rise of the Pirates, back in 20X5. It had not been a good time to be a Federation soldier. He was thankful Samus had destroyed the base on Zebes that very year, crippling the Pirates and removing their choke hold on the galaxy.

"We need to find their new base," Dane said. "Infiltrate and destroy it, just like before."

Connehan bit his lip. "Except Samus can't go."

There was a loud noise on the other side of the line; Connehan assumed that Dane had kicked the console. "Damn!" the admiral shouted. "This is why they did it, isn't it? They took out Samus, the one woman able to defeat them before, and..."

Connehan sighed. "Admiral, there's... there's still more."

Dane looked away, letting out a heavy sigh. "Go ahead," he said at last.

"There's a biologist here named Kevin Jacobs," Connehan said. "He came here from the science vessel GFS _Zodiac_ in order to communicate with his supervisor. The _Zodiac_'s comm array was damaged from a wayward experiment, see, and we were in the same spaceport..."

"The point being?" Dane growled.

Connehan swallowed. "Jacobs... he said he had an idea. And he mentioned something about screwing with Samus's DNA. He then asked that they be given privacy, and left with her and R-Stl the Luminoth."

Dane lifted an eyebrow. "What sort of idea?"

"I can't say," Connehan said. "Jacobs was very secretive, but I was able to tell he was very concerned that nobody find out about what he's doing."

"Too bad for him," Dane said. "Find him and find out what he's up to."

Connehan sat up. "Admiral, don't you think that's being a little..."

"Look, Connehan," Dane growled, "You're telling me that Samus's life may be in the hands of this... this biologist. I don't like it. If what he's doing really can help her, then he shouldn't have a reason to hide it. If he has different intentions, I don't want him getting away with them. Understand?"

Connehan bit his lip. "I seriously doubt that Jacobs means any harm. We did a background check before allowing him on board, and..."

"Connehan..." Dane trailed off. "I'm sorry. I understand that you think Jacobs means well. Hell, I'm sure he's a nice kid. But after everything you just told me, I can see that we can't take the risk. Even if you're right, anything that involves changing with Samus's DNA could be dangerous to her. Find out what he's up to, and report back to me in an hour."

Connehan was silent for a long time before allowing his head to nod. "Yes, Admiral. I understand."

Dane's hardened features relaxed a little. "Glad to hear it, old friend. Dane out."

The screen clicked off, and the console folded back into Connehan's desk. He glanced at his watch. He had one hour to report in. He would give Jacobs fifty minutes, then, to complete whatever he was doing.

Dane was right. They couldn't afford to take the risk that Jacob's idea, even if perfectly benevolent, wouldn't harm Samus even more.

But even more so, they couldn't afford not to.

* * *

"I guess I should have realized," Samus sighed. "If the Pirates have X-Parasites, why shouldn't we?"

"It's not nearly the same," Jacobs said. "We found this thing entirely by accident. The _Zodiac_ was studying the reactions that had caused SR388 to explode when we came across a fragment of the station with a dormant life form clinging to it. Before bringing it on board, we scanned it, and we found our little friend here." He gestured to the mass of green gel.

"Was this being not at the center of the BSL fiasco?" R-Stl asked.

"Not this one specifically," Jacobs said. "But its species, yes. The X-Parasites infested everything aboard the BSL Station. When Samus here was dispatched to investigate, she wanted to destroy them all, but certain Federation officials wanted a specimen to study." He looked at the parasite again. "That's why I wanted to keep this secret. If Connehan, or anyone else, knew that Justin and I had caught a live X..."

Samus smiled weakly. "Yeah. I understand now."

Jacobs looked at her, biting his lip. "You're... not angry? These things almost killed you more than once, and when you destroyed them, there was the investigation..."

Samus looked at him. "I _want_ to be angry," she said. "But I just can't be." She stood up, and walked toward the tank containing the parasite. "Jacobs, you had this thing, but you and Bailey didn't tell anyone about it. That shows me you're more trustworthy than I ever could have thought." She looked back at Jacobs, still smiling. "So if you say this thing's DNA can help me stop the Pirates, I'm willing to trust you with that, too."

Jacobs couldn't help but blush a little. "I..." he took a breath. "Thank you, Samus."

R-Stl nodded. "All right," he said. "Shall we begin?"


	11. Space Skirmish

**Author's note:** Out of everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter, only one guy spotted the "Justin Bailey" reference. He gets a cookie. The rest of you get to read the next chapter. Of course, he gets to do that to, so the point is kind of moot.

* * *

"This is the last thing we need right now," Connehan sighed.

"Actually, sir," an ensign called, "I think the last thing we need right now is an increase in the price of..."

"Shut _up_," Connehan ordered, rubbing his temples. He didn't even have the brainpower to wonder what the hell they were teaching the recruits these days. All his attention was focused on the frigate. "How long has it been since they started charging their engines?"

"Almost five minutes, sir." Thankfully, it wasn't the same ensign as before.

"When will they be able to fly?"

"It should be about..." the ensign paused. "Right now."

Connehan quickly turned to the main screen; the ship was on the move. A very clumsy, inaccurate move, but it was on the move nonetheless. "Damn!" he muttered. "Scan it!"

"We'll have to wait for it to clear the atmosphere," the ensign said. "The planetary energy is still screwing up our–"

He was cut off by a loud beeping noise coming from a different display. He glanced at it; his eyes widened in shock. "Sir! Proximity sensors have detected another ship nearby!"

"What?" Connehan looked around the main screen. There was nothing there. "Nearby, where?"

"It should be right on top of us," the ensign reported. "But I don't see–"

As if on cue, a small, sleek ship of Pirate design shimmered into the visible light range next to the Federation cruiser. It raced forward, charging its weapons.

Connehan swore aloud. "What the hell is that?! Where did it come from?"

"It looks like a scout ship," someone said, studying the main screen. "But I have no idea why we weren't able to see it before..."

"Shadow cloak," someone else said.

"No way," the first ensign said, swiveling around to look at the others. "Shadow cloaks are for single units, not ships."

"What's it doing?" Connehan asked, standing up as he peered at the screen.

"Over the years, the Pirates may have been able to improve the technology and extend it to an entire ship," the second ensign said. "They're probably de-cloaking now because the cloak drains the same power source as their weapons, just like the portable cloak."

"Then why did our proximity sensors pick them up as they flew past?"

"What's it doing?" Connehan growled, looking around.

"The shadow cloak affects multiple EM frequencies, but our proximity sensors use a different technology that could..."

Connehan sighed, and turned to someone not involved in the argument. "What's it _doing_?" he asked again

"Its weapons are charged, but it's not coming at us," the ensign said. "I think..." she peered closer at the two ships on the screen. "Sir, I think the scout ship is attacking the frigate!"

"What?" Connehan shook his head. "But that makes no..."

A flash of weapons fire prevented him from completing his sentence. He looked up at the screen; sure enough, the scout ship had opened fire on the frigate. Connehan wasn't even be sure that they were shooting to disable; the shots were getting closer and closer to the ship's core, which would destroy it completely if hit.

"Wonderful," Connehan said, collapsing onto his chair. "The world's gone insane. Again."

Everyone on the bridge had fallen silent as they watched the scout vessel's relentless attack on the frigate. "Your orders, sir?" someone eventually asked.

"Pull back," Connehan said firmly. "As far back as you can without losing visual on those ships." He fidgeted in his chair, sighing. "We don't have any weapons, we're still licking our wounds from the last battle, the fleet has already withdrawn, and Samus is down for the count. There's nothing we can do but wait and hope for the best."

* * *

LA-SRU-91704-Alpha clenched his pincers into the Pirates' equivalent of fists, nearly crushing the small recording device in his hand as he disembarked from the shuttle. The idea of what had happened down on Aliehs III's moon disgusted him; he was glad he and his team had finally left the accursed satellite and returned to their ship. As he had ordered, his Pirates had allowed just enough time for them to dock with before de-cloaking and attacking the rogue's frigate. The sounds of the charging lasers sent a satisfying hum through the ship; Alpha took some small pleasure in the noise, but he would only be truly happy once the rogue had been destroyed. It may have been preferable to take the traitor alive, so that Alpha could torture and kill him personally—but, if one of their shots happened to destroy the ship's core, there was really nothing he could do.

He led the landing party away from the docking bay to the ship's small bridge, where they quickly moved to their battle stations. Alpha sat down in the command chair. "Report," he called in the Pirate's guttural language.

"We've de-cloaked and opened fire, as you can tell," LA-SRU-91704-Theta called. "The rogue is taking evasive action, but it's clear he's never flown before. At this rate, we can have him disabled in a matter of minutes."

_Disabled_, Alpha thought. _Of course_. "What of the _Oberon_?" he asked. They had hidden just out of range of the ship's proximity sensors until they were ready to commence their attack, but now that they had dropped their cloak, the Federation ship didn't need sensors to know they were there.

"They're moving out of range," Alpha's second-in-command, LA-SRU-91704-Gamma, responded lazily. "I guess they just want to sit back and enjoy the show."

"Typical Federation cowardice," Alpha growled. "But no matter. Their time will come, as soon as we've finished with the traitor." He looked closer at the floundering frigate on the viewscreen. "How long before his shields fail?"

"Not long, sir," Theta responded, peering closely at his leader. "It's impossible to say exactly, but given how much fire he's taken... I'd guess he has no more than two minutes left." He cleared his throat. "Am I to assume, then, that you wish to take the traitor alive? Bring down his shields, disable his engines, and board?"

Alpha hesitated a moment, watching the frigate intently, before narrowing his eyes and shaking his head. "Let him burn in the fires of his core," he growled. "I won't grant him the honor of an execution by the hands of any noble Pirate."

The irony of that statement was lost on everyone present, as they continued their assault on the frigate.

* * *

R-Stl and Kevin Jacobs walked through the door to find themselves on a hectic and noisy bridge. "What's going on?" Jacobs asked, perplexed.

Connehan turned at the sound of the doctor's voice, and his eyes widened. He quickly got to his feet and worked his way across the bridge to them. "What are you two doing here?" he asked. "I thought you were working with Samus!"

"We were," Jacobs said, "But we're done now."

"Well, then, where is she?" Connehan asked, looking from one to the other.

"In my lab," Jacobs responded. "She's finishing up."

"I thought you said you were done!"

"_We_ are," Jacobs repeated. "But _she_ still needs to finish up."

"Perfect," Connehan growled, glancing briefly at the viewscreen before turning back to Jacobs. "How long?"

Jacobs glanced at his watch. "I'd say... forty minutes

Connehan pursed his lips. "Are you sure?"

"Of course," Jacobs said, furrowing his brow. "Why?"

"Because in forty-_five_ minutes, I need to call Admiral Dane and tell him what exactly it is that you're up to. And if I can't do that, he's going to order me to stop whatever Samus is 'finishing up' and take you into custody."

Kevin's eyes widened. "You can't-!"

"I'll have to," Connehan growled. "_I'm_ willing to trust you, Jacobs, but Dane is my superior officer, and if you can't convince him that you can help Samus, then–"

"What's going on here?" R-Stl interrupted, his eyes fixed on the two ships on the viewscreen.

Connehan sighed as he looked back at the screen. "I don't even know anymore. The Pirate frigate that had chased Samus to the surface of Aliehs III's moon took off, but then this—this scout ship, if that's what it is, attacked it."

"A Pirate scout ship?" R-Stl asked, moving closer to the screen.

"As far as we can tell," Connehan replied. "It doesn't make any sense, but that's what's happening."

"Pirates have loyalty to their cause," Jacobs said sadly, "Not to each other. My guess is that someone on board that frigate is about to be executed."

"Someone on board..." R-Stl echoed.

"I've got everyone on this bridge hopping," Connehan continued. "I need to know what to do—whether we should try to help, or get the hell out of here before that scout ship finishes with the execution and turns on us. We're trying to assess the threat and estimate damages for all possible courses of action, as well as contact the fleet to try and get some reinforcements, but right now, I–" he cut himself off, looking over Kevin's shoulder. "Hey, where the hell are you going?"

Jacobs turned around to see R-Stl leaving the bridge. "R-Stl!" He yelled. "What are you doing?"

"I need to help him," R-Stl called over his shoulder.

Jacobs and Connehan ran to catch up with him. "Help who?" the doctor asked.

"The Pirate," R-Stl replied. "The one on the frigate

"What? But why-"

R-Stl stopped, hesitating. "He helped me save Samus," he said at last.

Connehan and Jacobs exchanged a glance. "Care to run that by me again?" the officer asked.

"I didn't know what to make of it before," R-Stl said. "But the fact is that without him, I may not have been able to save her at all. He turned on the Pirates, gave them two fronts to fight on—and then handed her over to me. If they plan to execute him—well, he gave Samus a chance at life. I owe him the same."

The two humans fell silent, exchanging worried glances. "R-Stl," Connehan began, "I understand how you feel. And now that you've told me that, I'd like to help him. But the fact is that we just can't. The _Oberon_ doesn't have weapons of any kind."

"I know," R-Stl said, continuing down the hall. "But the _Scorpion_ does."

Jacobs and Connehan exchanged another glance as the Luminoth vanished around a corner. "What the hell is a _Scorpion_?" Connehan asked.

Before Jacobs could even shrug, the radio at Connehan's side activated. "Docking bay to officer Connehan!" a voice yelled. "R-Stl has entered his ship and is attempting to take off!"

"Oh," Connehan said. "That _Scorpion_." He picked up the radio. "Connehan to docking bay. Let him go. He's going to help a friend."

"Affirmative," came the reply. "Docking bay out."

Connehan turned back to the bridge, with Jacobs in tow. "R-Stl's helping a Pirate," he muttered. "Now if only we could help ourselves."

Jacobs looked at his watch. "Thirty-eight minutes before Samus is ready."

* * *

Scorpions were not a native species of the planet Aether, but R-Stl had learned of them by researching data the Luminoth had collected during their starfaring days. The ship that had been given to R-Stl had not officially been christened, nor had any of the identical ships that the other researchers were to receive, but when he saw the large dark cannon extending from its back, he could think of no better name for it than _Scorpion_.

No sooner did the compact vessel clear the _Oberon_'s docking bay than it swung around and raced toward the battling Pirate vessels. The attacking vessel had unusually strong weapons for a scout ship, and it was damned fast, too. The frigate had good armor and powerful shields, but those would wear away fast under the incessant pounding. Before long, the scout ship would have a clear shot at the frigate's core, and then one blast would end the battle.

R-Stl's first order of business, then, was to disable the scout ship's weapons. He took the flight controls in one hand as his other took the mechanisms that aimed the dark cannon. Carefully moving each control stick individually, he maneuvered the ship closer to the seemingly unaware scout vessel, took a bead on their primary weapons, and...

_No! Too late!_ The scout ship had detected him, and quickly began moving. He had lost his bead on their weapons. He released the dark cannon controls; if he was going to get into a dogfight with these Pirates, he'd need both hands to fly, and he wouldn't be able to rely on the ponderous, slow-firing cannon. At the very least, though, he had bought the renegade Pirate on the frigate some time as the scout ship pulled back from his own vessel.

As the scout ship came about, R-Stl opened an audio channel to the frigate. "This is R-Stl of the Luminoth," he called. "Are you there?"

"You!" came the surprised response. "What are you doing here?"

"Attempting to save you," R-Stl replied. "Your former comrades are going to kill you unless you do what I say."

A disgusting noise that R-Stl eventually realized was a laugh came through the speakers. "I would sooner die honorably as a Pirate than follow you to a life of cowardice!"

"You turned your back on the Pirates," R-Stl said firmly. "Or perhaps you hadn't noticed the scout ship trying to destroy you?"

"Don't even pretend to understand, Luminoth," the Pirate growled. R-Stl was slightly surprised that the alien could remember the name of his species, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. "This is more complicated than you can possibly imagine," the Pirate finished.

"Really," R-Stl replied flatly. "Then I suggest you try telling that to them, because they seem to find it somewhat simple; they're here to kill you, and you're here to die." He was growing frustrated; this Pirate wouldn't be swayed, and the scout ship had almost recovered from the shock of his appearance and reached an attack position. "You obviously had a reason to run in the first place," he said. "Why stop now?"

"They caught me," the Pirate answered curtly. "I had hoped for more of a head start than this, but there's nothing to be done about that now."

The Pirate was right about one thing; R-Stl had no idea what was going on in his mind. Why would he turn his back on his species, kill several of them to rescue their worst enemy—and then give himself up as soon as they caught up to him, only a few minutes after the "chase" began? The loyalty that had been hammered into this Pirate's mind for years must be conflicting somehow with his newfound independence; he was having trouble dealing with it, and so was R-Stl. But he had to try.

"Listen to me," the Luminoth said, forcing his voice to remain calm, yet as forceful as he could make it. "No, I don't understand. Somehow, I doubt you understand it fully either. But I can tell you this much. For some reason, you saved Samus's life. And because of that, I believe that you deserve a chance at life yourself."

There was silence on the other end. R-Stl used the pause to check the status of the scout ship; it had reached a good distance, and was now turning around and racing back toward them—and this time the Pirates would not be scared off by the appearance of a new ship.

"What would you have me do?" the Pirate said at last.

R-Stl let out an undetectable sigh of relief. The Pirate hadn't exactly conceded to his terms, but he hadn't remained adamant on his own, either. "Take evasive action," he said, "And head towards the Federation ship. They won't move against you. When you get close enough, get in an escape pod, and make a run for their ship."

"Evasive action?" the Pirate responded. "I barely got this thing off the ground. You seriously believe I can evade their weapons?"

"Fine then," R-Stl growled. "Try to stay behind me." He looked at the oncoming scout ship again, and powered up his weapons. "This shouldn't take long."

* * *

"Fire!" LA-SRU-91704-Alpha cried, rage burning in his eyes. "Show the alien scum what we do to those who interfere with us!"

The scout ship's frontal cannons began to blaze, firing away at the alien vessel; however, the small craft was easily able to evade. Alpha focused on the frigate. "Attack the traitor again!" he ordered. "This newcomer is attempting to distract us!" _And succeeding,_ he thought to himself bitterly.

Theta retargeted the frigate as Gamma approached Alpha. "What are we to do?" he asked.

Alpha pondered the situation a moment. "The traitor is our priority," he said. "It won't take long to finish him. Once that's done, we can take care of the meddler, and then destroy the Federation pigs."

Gamma looked at the screen with a heavy sigh. "So many targets," he said, "and so little time..."

"You have, perhaps, a better idea?" Alpha snarled, glaring at his second-in-command.

"Call in another ship," Gamma replied nonchalantly. "Take some of the work off our shoulders."

Alpha let out a barking laugh. "And allow another commander to try and steal my glory?"

"The new Shadow-class ships are formidable," Gamma responded patiently, "But they are still simply scout ships. Just to be safe, I would recommend calling in another ship to help."

"Recommendation noted," Alpha replied. "And may I _also_ note, Gamma, that there is a reason you are only second-in-command."

"You may," Gamma sighed. He returned to his station without another word.

Alpha shook his head. He couldn't be distracted by insubordinate subordinates right now; he had a battle to focus on. "Status on the frigate," he called.

"I'm having trouble re-targeting it," Theta answered, focusing on his controls more than on his commander. "The alien ship is trying to stay between us and him, interfering with the scanners."

"Then target manually," Alpha ordered impatiently. "I don't care how you do it; just blast the traitor out of the sky!"

Theta grumbled something under his breath, but complied. He leaned closer to his console as he took control of the weapons from the ship's computers. Moments later, a stream of bolts cut across the frigate's hull on the viewscreen.

"Again!" Alpha ordered. "His shields are failing! Soon, we will–"

A sudden hit rocked the scout ship. Alpha grabbed onto the sides of his command chair to stabilize himself. "What the hell was that?!" he hissed.

"The alien ship," Gamma answered, looking at his displays. "Looks like he hit us with some sort of advanced missile."

"Don't tell me what it 'looks like'!" Alpha barked. "How bad is it?!"

Gamma rolled his eyes as he checked his readings. "There's a good dent in the hull, but not much else. I doubt he knows what exactly he should be targeting."

"Should I re-target the alien, sir?" Theta called.

"Not until the traitor has been destroyed," Alpha growled. "If that's the best our alien friend can dish out, this ought to be even easier than I thought."

Gamma shook his head. "I can't help but wonder why it took him so long to actually fire at us in the first place."

"You can ask him after he's dead," Alpha replied curtly.

Gamma furrowed his brow. "Wait, how would that–"

He was interrupted by an incredibly bright flash on the viewscreen. Alpha shielded his eyes for a moment before turning to Theta. "Was that it?!" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Theta replied, slumping back in his seat. "The frigate has been eliminated."

Alpha let out a relieved sigh. "Excellent. Then the traitor is dead."

"No, he's not," Gamma called. "An escape pod ejected from the frigate about two seconds before it exploded. It's heading toward the Federation ship now."

"What?!" Alpha exploded.

Gamma sighed. "I _said_, an escape pod ejected from–"

"Shut up!" Alpha shouted, cradling his head in his arms. "Theta, destroy that escape pod, now!"

Theta began to comply when Gamma held up his hand. "The alien ship is heading in on an attack vector," he said. "I'd suggest concentrating on that."

Theta looked at Alpha. "Sir?"

"I thought I told you to shut up!" Alpha shouted to Gamma. "Destroy the pod, now!"

Theta turned back to his controls and was reaching for the trigger when another shot rocked the ship. This one was different, though; there was no explosion, more like something simply slammed into their side.

"Fire!" Alpha ordered, practically screaming.

"I can't," Theta reported, struggling with the controls. "Weapon's aren't responding. That last hit must have destroyed our cannons!"

"Not destroyed," Gamma said, peering at his own monitor. "It looks more like they're… frozen. Encased in something."

"Then unfreeze them!" Alpha ordered. "Crack whatever's encasing them!"

Another hit, this one more violent then the last.

"OK," Gamma said, "_Now_ he's destroyed them. He hit us with another missile that shattered the frozen cannons."

"Dammit!" Alpha shouted, striking the edge of his chair. "Evasive action! If he fires again, we'll have to–"

"Sir!" Theta interrupted. "It actually looks like he's retreating!"

Alpha looked at the viewscreen. The frigate's escape pod was entering the docking bay of the Federation ship; the alien vessel, upon seeing this, wheeled around and headed back as well. And with their weapons disabled, the Pirates were powerless to stop any of it.

"They'll get away if we wait too long," Theta said. "What do we do?"

Alpha stared at the screen for a moment, thinking hard. Gamma turned to look at him. "Well?"

"It's only one ship," Alpha muttered.

"So are we," Gamma reminded him. He had a bad feeling that he knew what his commander was thinking.

"Yes, but we are Pirates. Trained soldiers. All they have is their security force—maybe a few marines."

"And a Pirate traitor, and some sort of alien warrior, who, between the two of them, were able to wipe out a small army of troops on Aliehs III's moon. We don't know what we're getting into."

Alpha rose from his seat, a shadow of a smile crossing his face. "Sure we do," he said. "The traitor was kind enough to tell us in his recording that they were only able to take the Pirates when they were caught completely off-guard. We won't make the same mistakes they did. Besides, they have the incapacitated Hunter aboard. Ridley may have faith in Science Team's virus—but why pass up the opportunity to destroy her once and for all?"

Gamma shook his head. "This is a bad idea," he said.

"Again, Gamma, I find it necessary to remind you why you are only second-in-command," Alpha said. He activated the ship-wide intercom. "All hands, suit up and prepare to move out."

* * *

"You brought him _here?!_" Connehan shouted, motioning wildly at the Pirate and the four security officers surrounding him as R-Stl descended from the _Scorpion_.

"Of course," R-Stl replied calmly. "There was no other option."

"There's a _Pirate_ on my _ship_!" Connehan yelled. "What were you thinking?!"

"Can we talk about this later?" Jacobs asked, glancing nervously around at the others. "There's still an over-powered Pirate scout ship out there."

"You worry needlessly," R-Stl replied assuringly. "It took me a while to properly target their weapons, but once I did, I was able to destroy them. The Pirates have no way of attacking us."

Immediately, the ship-wide intercom came on. "Officer Connehan to the bridge!" a voice shouted purposefully. "Repeat, Connehan to the bridge immediately!"

"You just had to go and jinx it, didn't you?" Connehan grumbled at the Luminoth. He motioned to the guards. "Take him to the brig and then report back to me," he said. "I have a bad feeling about this." He turned and swept out the doors.

Moments later, Connehan entered the bridge, closely followed by Jacobs and R-Stl. "Report!" he called, crossing to and collapsing in his chair

"There are hatches opening on the outside of the vessel," one of the ensigns quickly reported. "It looks like they're about to launch boarding pods.

Connehan jerked up. "Boarding pods?!" he asked incredulously. "They have boarding pods?!"

"Yes," the ensign replied simply

"What the hell kind of a scout ship _is_ that?!" Connehan asked, running his hands through his hair. "Ensign, get us out of here!"

"We can't, sir," the ensign replied. "Our hyperdrive is still down."

Connehan gave him an odd look. "Our hyperdrive is down?"

"Of course," the ensign replied. "Engineering's working on it, but we may need to wait for another ship to bring supplies before we can–"

"Why the hell wasn't I informed?!" Connehan yelled. "This is the first I've heard of any hyperdrive failure!"

"Well, why did you think we spent all this time sitting here?"

Connehan put his head in his hands. "Never mind that now! Can you evade the pods?"

"Maybe," the pilot replied. "Some of them. But that scout ship is a lot more nimble than we are. Sooner or later, they're going latch one on to us."

Connehan took a deep breath. "All right. Keep us Pirate-free for as long as you can." He turned to his communications officer. "Inform security to be prepared. We're bringing guests to dinner tonight."

Despite the odd metaphor, she complied as Connehan got up and went to Jacobs and R-Stl. "How long?" he asked.

Jacobs glanced at his watch. "About twenty-seven minutes left."

Connehan shook his head. "Let's hope she's ready to join the party," he said, "or they'll be the last twenty-seven minutes of any of our lives."


	12. Boarding

"The ship doesn't have external weapons, but it has an on-board armory?" Jacobs asked. "Who designed this crate, anyway?"

Connehan let out a sigh as he swiped his security card through the reader. "The _Oberon_ is one of our older vessels," he said as the armory doors opened, "but she's also one of our most reliable. I've been commanding her for over a decade, and I was a hand for five years before that. In all that time, she's never let me or anyone else down." Entering the armory, he hefted one of the larger guns. "And I would appreciate you not calling her a crate."

Jacobs took a step back and nodded, eyeing the weapon uneasily.

Connehan allowed himself a small smile. "But as soon as we get into dry dock, I'll ask for a few cannons." He held the weapon out to Jacobs. "Have you ever fired a gun before?"

Jacobs shook his head, paling.

"Then I hope you're a damned fast learner," Connehan said, practically shoving the gun into the biologist's hands. He looked at their alien companion. "R-Stl?"

"No thank you," the Luminoth said, lifting one of his own weapons. "I think I can handle myself."

"I hope so," Connehan replied. He headed out the door.

Jacobs stumbled after him, holding the gun unsteadily at arms' length. "Connehan, I don't know how to use this!" he called.

"Point the long end at the Pirate, squeeze the trigger, and repeat as necessary," Connehan replied. "A smart kid like you can figure it out."

"But I…"

"Listen, Jacobs," Connehan said firmly, not breaking his stride for a second. "If and when the pirates get onboard, I'm going to need every hand I can get to fight them off. Most of my guys have basic training, but they're used to piloting a ship, not fighting pirates in close quarters. A few marines, the security teams, and R-Stl are our only competent fighters, and if we're going to win this, I'm going to need to rely on the incompetent ones as well." He looked at the gun Jacobs was holding. "Besides, that's a pretty nice weapon, all things considered. You'll be fine."

Jacobs was still white as a sheet, but he slowly nodded and followed Connehan silently.

Connehan radioed the bridge. "Status," he ordered.

"Pirate frigate has launched boarding pods," the reply came. "ETA ninety seconds. We're going to try to dodge them if we can, but at the rate they're moving…"

"Understood," Connehan said. "What about reinforcements?"

"The fleet has been largely damaged after the battle, but Dane received our request and is sending the _Hero_ back to help us. Unfortunately, ETA is twenty minutes."

"Damn," Connehan said. He looked to the Luminoth. "R-Stl, do you think you can shoot down some of the pods in the _Scorpion_?"

"I thought of that already," R-Stl replied, shaking his head. "They're too large for me to do any real damage to in the amount of time I'd have. I could knock them around a bit, but my weapons aren't powerful enough to destroy them without freezing them first, and I don't have enough time to do that."

Connehan nodded. "All right." He reached for the radio again. "Where are the pods going to hit?"

"It looks like the first one will hit the front starboard end of the ship, level two," the bridge answered. "There are two more out there. One will hit the mid-starboard end on level three about twenty seconds after the first one hits. The third looks like it'll miss us—for now."

"Got it," Connehan said. "And the security teams?"

"We've deployed everyone we can to the closest access points. But we could use some more people where the first pod will hit."

"Then that's where we're going," Connehan said. "Keep me updated. Connehan out."

Connehan led the way to the access point. One corridor led along the edge of the ship at the point in question; another intersected it nearby. Security teams were already in place, setting up improvisational cover in the surrounding corridors as they trained their weapons at the point where the pod would hit.

He checked his watch. "Forty seconds," he said. "Are we ready?"

The leader of the security team nodded. "Pirate boarding pods typically hold about a dozen troops. If each of these pods is carrying a full supplement, it'll be a pain to hold them off, but nothing we can't handle."

"Don't get complacent, soldier," Connehan reminded him. "Where are the marines?"

"Most of them were assigned to the other expected breach point," the man said, "But I think some of them are on their way here."

"All right," Connehan said. He motioned to Jacobs and R-Stl. "You two, get into position."

R-Stl complied, but Jacobs merely stood in place, looking around nervously. "Get in position where?"

Connehan rolled his eyes. "Try behind some cover," he said.

Jacobs instantly zipped behind an upended table that had been dragged into the corridor.

"Twenty seconds," Connehan muttered.

"Lock and load," the security team commander ordered. His men made final preparations.

Before anyone knew it, there was a horrendous grinding noise and a shudder went through the ship. A large blast opened the outer hull of the ship; everyone was far back enough that they weren't hurt, but some had to duck flying debris. As soon as it was clear, the men swung their guns around, completely ready to face the empty pod.

"Wait," Connehan said, "What the hell?"

Nobody dared move; they were all looking at the pod. You could see all the way to its back, and it was devoid of any pirates.

"Damn!" Connehan said, turning around. "This one must have been a decoy. We've got to get to the other—"

He was interrupted by a sharp yelp from one of the security team members. Turning, he saw the man slump to the ground, blood gushing from a fresh wound in his chest. Before anyone could react, the man next to him was lifted into the air and thrown against a wall with a sickening crack.

"Shadow cloak," Jacobs whispered, in awe.

Connehan swore aloud. "Fire, dammit! Fire!" he shouted. "If you even _think_ you see something moving, shoot it!" He reached to his radio as blaster bolts began flying everywhere. "Connehan to bridge! Alert all security teams that the enemy is using shadow cloak technology! Tell them to shoot first, find the targets later!"

The Pirates remained invisible, using their melee weapons against the Federation troops. However, the security team soon got themselves together. They pulled back and lay down a blanket of fire that not even an invisible Pirate could get through unscathed. Soon, several corpses seemingly materialized out of thin air as they fell to the ground, riddled with burns. Others were unlucky enough to have their cloaking module hit and disabled. Their heads were next.

Before long, it seemed to be over. Connehan turned to the men. "Casualties!" he barked.

"These guys are in bad shape," a man kneeling over the bodies of the first few Pirate victims responded. "But I think they'll live, if we get them help."

"Good," Connehan said. "And the Pirates?"

The man did a quick body count. "We got nine of them, sir."

Connehan swore. "Pods can hold a dozen troops. Assuming this one was fully stocked, we've got three Pirates running around the ship. Sergeant," he said to the team leader, "Get some men to carry wounded to the medical bay. Take the rest of your men, see if you can't get some thermal goggles, and reinforce the other access points. You did a good job of getting these Pirates before they could get past us; now make sure you get the rest."

The sergeant saluted sharply. "Sir!" He quickly began giving orders to his men.

"Who will hunt the missing Pirates?" R-Stl asked.

"We will," Connehan answered, starting down the corridor.

"We?" Jacobs echoed uneasily.

Instead of responding, Connehan simply put his hand around the biologist's wrist and began dragging him after. He hailed the bridge. "Connehan here. I need an internal sensor sweep of the entire ship. We may have some Pirates running around here, and if we do, I need to know where they are."

"Just a minute." There was a brief pause. "Aside from our new friend in the brig, it looks like there are three Pirate-like life forms aboard."

"Dammit," Connehan growled. "Can you tell me where they're going?"

"Hard to tell," the response came. "Wherever it is, though, they're moving damned fast."

"All right," Connehan said. "Where are they now?"

"One level down from you, corridor C."

Connehan promptly went to a multi-level access hatch, kicked it open, and started down the ladder. Jacobs was right behind; R-Stl had some difficulty fitting himself into the relatively small space, but was eventually able to float down after them.

They emerged from the hatch on the lower level, Connehan still leading the way. "Update," he hissed into his communicator, keeping his voice low.

"Corridor D, and continuing towards the port side," the bridge responded; Connehan winced at the volume. "Sir, I think they may be heading towards the–"

"Keep your voice _down,_" Connehan hissed.

"Sorry, sir," the answer came more quietly. "I think they may be headed towards the–" he cut himself off again. "Sir, they've changed course! Be advised, they're headed straight for you!"

"What?!"

"They're coming the opposite direction you are. They'll be on you in about twenty seconds."

The group instantly fell back to the last intersection in the hall. R-Stl pulled out a small device and mounted it on his eyes. Jacobs glanced up at him uneasily. "What's that?"

"Echo visor," the Luminoth whispered. "If they're cloaked, it'll help me see them."

Jacobs turned to Connehan. "Should we get some thermal goggles or something?"

"No time," Connehan hissed, taking cover around a bend. "Look, the shadow cloak has a few flaws. It'll be difficult, but if you keep your eyes open, you ought to be able to spot them. If you see even a flicker of movement, open fire. And remember, they can't hit us with long range-weapons as long as their cloak is up, so all you have to do is gun them down before they get to you."

"Right," Jacobs answered, nodding without conviction. "All I have to do. No pressure."

Connehan snarled at him. "Keep your gun pointed down that corridor and your complaints to yourself." He looked up at the Luminoth. "R-Stl, think you can help us figure out where to shoot?"

"The echo visor has a confusing interface, to say the least," R-Stl said, "And it would be difficult to tell you where the Pirates are in relation to…"

"We'll just shoot where you're shooting," Connehan sighed, waving his hand.

"Of course," R-Stl replied. "A sound..." He suddenly pointed his gun and fired down the corridor. A black burn mark appeared briefly in the air, accompanied by an alien scream.

Connehan swore aloud, but the sound was lost in the sudden onset of gunfire as he, Jacobs, and R-Stl peppered the hall with bolts and bullets. There were a few more cries and floating burn marks from the other end, but no bodies appeared. The three continued firing until their weapons overheated, forcing them to stop. They studied the hall carefully. "Well?" Jacobs asked. "Did we get them?"

Connehan turned to R-Stl. "Can you tell?"

"The noise from all the gunfire scrambled my visor," the alien whispered. "Give it a moment to clear."

They waited for a second as R-Stl peered intently at the corridor. Suddenly, he took a step back. "Look out!" he shouted, panicked. "They're right–"

His reply was lost as an invisible Pirate blade clanged loudly against his armor. Connehan spun to face the corridor, and managed to see a flicker of electricity dancing across a cloaking device just in time to leap back and avoid the slashing bayonet. Jacobs had no time to react before he was tackled, rolling back down the corridor accompanied by an unseen Pirate.

Connehan brought his gun to bear on the spot of thin air that had attacked him, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. With a start, he realized the gun was still cooling. A shout from in front of him alerted him to another slash; he dodged this one as well, and promptly stuck out with his weapon. A resounding clang and a satisfying cry of pain let the officer know that he had hit home. He followed up with a forceful kick, and was rewarded by the sound of his quarry sprawling on the floor.

R-Stl, in the meantime, had engaged his antagonist in hand-to-hand combat. He was clearly frantic, as the echo visor was less than clear under the best of circumstances, and must have been a mess when surrounded by the noises of battle. But he was holding his own. The Pirate's weapons seemed to be able to do little more than nick and dent his armor, while his own blade struck home repeatedly. He, too, soon gained the upper hand against his foe.

But he was not ready for a rush from behind. The Pirate that had attacked Jacobs had left the biologist and run to help his comrades, tackling the larger Luminoth. R-Stl, caught off-guard, toppled forward. Connehan saw the alien fall, caught a glimpse of electricity on his back, swung his gun around and fired. The blast knocked the pirate off of R-Stl, slamming him against the wall. But Connehan's own antagonist took advantage of the distraction and slugged him hard in the face. The human was sent reeling back.

Connehan and R-Stl tried to get to their feet, ready for the next attack. As R-Stl looked around the corridor, he lowered his weapon. "They're… they're _gone_," he said, confused.

Connehan glanced up at him. "Are you sure?"

"They must have retreated," R-Stl said. "Or else advanced as soon as they were able."

Connehan swore again. "Well, at least we were able to slow him down." He crossed over to where Jacobs lay on the floor. "You all right, kid?"

The biologist waved up at him. "A little winded," he responded. "It'd be great if I could rest here for a while."

"Yeah, great," Connehan replied. "Too bad we don't have time for that." He extended his hand. "Get up. We've got Pirates to find."

"Of course we do," Jacobs sighed. But he took the hand and pulled himself up.

* * *

"That was a waste of time," Alpha hissed to his subordinates. "You shouldn't have engaged them."

"Sorry, sir," Theta muttered. Of the three Pirates, he had received the bulk of the damage during the battle; he was caught in the initial burst of fire and had the bad luck of fighting R-Stl.

"Oh, come _on_," Gamma complained. "They intercepted us. We didn't exactly have a choice."

"We should have retreated!" Alpha growled.

"They would have followed."

"The humans obviously can't see us; even the alien that was with them has trouble. They wouldn't have been able to find us if we had retreated."

Gamma sighed. "OK, you're right. We should have retreated. Too bad our fearless leader didn't order a retreat!"

Alpha glared at him, although the fact that they were invisible lessened the effect somewhat. "Are you questioning my leadership, Gamma?"

"No. I'm outright _criticizing_ it."

Alpha turned away from him, storming down another corridor. "I don't think I should have to remind you why you are only ranked Gamma," he growled. "Or the reason we no longer have a Beta on our ship."

Gamma remained silent.

"Theta, where do we go now?" Alpha asked, pleased that he had gotten his second-in-command to shut up.

"According to the scans we took of this ship, left," the subordinate replied. "Once we get to the ship's reactor, all we need to do is set the charges and get out of here."

"Good, good," Alpha said. "We must keep moving. Even if they have no idea what we're up to, they'll use all the manpower they can to guard the reactor. We need to do this before they have any to spare."

"You don't want to go after the prisoner?" Gamma asked with mild interest.

"I planned for him to die in his own exploding ship," Alpha answered curtly. "Now, instead, he'll die in this one. There is no difference."

"No," Gamma sighed. "Of course not."

The Pirates continued their journey in silence, until Theta reported that they were only one corridor away from the engine room. They made their way to the door, and glanced in. There were no guards, but there were a few engineers about.

"We'll have to dispose of them, lest they notice us setting the charges," Alpha whispered. "Theta, you take the two on the left."

"Yes, sir."

"Gamma, clear the right side of the room." He paused. "Gamma?"

No response. Alpha waved his arms around; he didn't feel Gamma anywhere.

He turned to Theta. "Where did he go?!"

"I-I'm not sure," Theta stammered. "I thought he was right behind us."

Alpha cursed. "Dammit, why don't we have thermal imagers? The humans can obviously track us, but we don't know where each other is?!"

"You said they were unnecessary…"

"Never mind," Alpha sighed, waving him silent. "He was unimportant. We will simply amend our plans. You clear the left side of the room; I'll take the few on the right and then plant the charges. Work quickly. Go!"

* * *

"Hello," a voice came from thin air.

The now-nameless Pirate looked up in time to see Gamma deactivate his cloaking device. The Pirate shimmered into the visible spectrum with his arms crossed and a slight smirk on his face as he crossed his arms.

The Pirate lowered his eyes defiantly. "So, you are to be my executioner."

Gamma did not respond. He sat down on a bench right outside the energy bars of the Pirate's cell. "What is your designation?" he asked.

"I filed my numbers off," the Pirate replied. "I have no designation. What's yours?"

"LA-SRU-91704-Gamma," Gamma replied, impressed. "You filed your numbers off? That takes guts."

"It was necessary. I am in exile from the Pirate forces." He still wasn't looking up at Gamma, staring straight ahead at his cell wall.

"Exile," Gamma echoed, smirking. "You realize that this 'exile' is self-perpetuated?"

"The alternative is execution."

Gamma nodded. "Indeed it is. So it's not so much 'exile' as it is 'fleeing,' is it?"

"You say potato."

Gamma gave him an odd look. "What?"

"It's a human expression," the Pirate sighed, shaking his head. "Forget it."

Gamma shrugged. "If you say so. But I need to call you something; I can't just say 'hey, you' all the time."

"Yes, you can," the Pirate answered. "You don't need to know my designation to kill me."

"I'm not here to kill you."

The Pirate looked up, caught off-guard. "What?!"

"My comrades are headed towards the ship's core with every intention of blowing it up. If they're successful, you'll die anyway. If not…" he shrugged. "What's the point?"

The Pirate shook his head. "I don't understand. You have a duty to fulfill, and you must fulfill it. You are a Pirate."

"So are you."

It took a second for the Pirate to fully understand that statement. He looked up at Gamma with wide eyes. "What… what do you mean?"

"I'm not entirely sure, myself," Gamma sighed. "But after having to deal with Alpha this long, I can tell you that you're not the only one who's become disillusioned with the Pirate cause."

"Alpha?" The Pirate was still confused.

"My commander," Gamma explained. "He's… not the best Pirate to work under. I became second-in-command after he killed Beta for some screw-up with the scanners. Officially, it was for allowing an enemy ship to sneak up on us. But we haven't seen any enemy ships in months. I think it was just a stray rock that scratched the paint or something."

The Pirate didn't know how to respond to that. "What are you doing here?" he asked at last.

Gamma leaned back in the bench. "I'm letting you know that you're not alone," he said. "It's been happening for various reasons. You were infected by Phazon, I got a jerk boss. But it's been happening more and more. There are Pirates out there who slipped under the radar; they pass all the loyalty tests, but are less than willing to give their lives for something they don't believe in."

"The Phazon infusions had no effect on me," the Pirate said unsurely. "The experiment was a failure."

"Oh, yes," Gamma said, laughing a little, "a _complete_ failure. Not only did it fail to produce anything like an Elite Pirate, it failed to produce a Pirate simple enough not to question basic loyalty programming." He leaned closer to the Pirate. "I've read about your batch. I've read how the Phazon appeared to have no effect on you. But I worked on Aether, and was one of those lucky enough to escape before the Phazon hit the fan, and I can tell you, _nothing_ exposed to enough of that stuff goes unaffected."

"But I have no abilities," the Pirate said. "And there's none of it in my system."

"It gave you one ability," Gamma corrected. "The ability to question orders. Admittedly, it's not much, but it's something. It saved Samus Aran's life. And if you play your cards right, it might save a lot more."

"And what do you mean by that?" the Pirate sighed. He was tired of being confused.

"As I said, there are others like you and I, who have come to question the Pirate way. Like the rest of our brethren, they are making their last stand at our base. They deserve a chance to use their free will; they deserve a chance at life."

"You want me to save them," the Pirate surmised.

"Yes," Gamma answered. "More importantly, though, I'm going to tell you how."

* * *

"Be advised," the bridge crackled over Connehan's radio. "One of the Pirates has broken off from the other two and is headed toward the brig. Teams report that four more Pirates have slipped through at the breach points, and are going to reinforce the other two, and it looks like they're heading towards the reactor."

"Oh, fun," Jacobs sighed. "More complications."

"Which way is the reactor?" R-Stl asked before Connehan could growl at the biologist. "I assume that allowing the Pirates to reach it would not be in our best interests."

"You assume correctly," Connehan sighed in response. "And it's this way." He started down another corridor, almost at a run. "Radio the engine room. Tell them to look out for trouble."

"Yes, sir." The radio fell silent for a moment. Finally, it crackled to life again with an uncertain voice. "Sir, they're not responding."

"Damn," Connehan muttered. He broke into a sprint, Jacobs stumbling after and R-Stl effortlessly floating in pursuit. They reached the entrance to the engine room to find it sealed shut. "Stand back," Connehan ordered, taking aim with his weapon and charging it beyond the safety point. The blast knocked the doors off, exposing the engine room.

Jacobs tightened his fists. The technicians were strewn about the room, either dead or unconscious. They wouldn't have time to find out which, as the shimmer of a cloaking device near the reactor suddenly caught their attention. The three of them promptly opened fire.

"Damn!" Alpha cried as his cloaking device was hit. As he shimmered into visibility, he dove behind the reactor, hoping the newcomers would stop shooting for fear of damaging it. They did, but he soon heard their footfalls entering the room, circling around towards his position. It was just him and Theta against the three of them, and he had no idea where Theta was.

Suddenly, there was another burst of fire, and Alpha instinctively covered his head. However, after a brief instant, he realized that those weren't human weapons he was hearing. More Pirates must have arrived. He risked a glance around the reactor, and sure enough, saw the two humans and Luminoth were pinned down under the fire from four more Pirates that had just arrived. They were trapped in the engine room, between the four new Pirates and himself.

"Nowhere to run," he snarled. Now that his shadow cloak was useless, he disconnected it and began powering his own weapon, smiling to himself as the charge began to build.

R-Stl had to curl up into a ball to keep under the crates they were suddenly using for cover. "This hurts," he complained.

"Not as much as it'll hurt if one of those blasts hits you," Connehan growled in response. "I don't know where they're getting the power for those, but those blasters could knock you across the room, armor or no."

"What do we do?!" Jacobs yelled, frantic.

Connehan reached for his radio. "We need backup!" he said. "Engine room, now!"

"We're a little busy ourselves!" crackled the reply. "We're trying to keep these rest of these damned Pirates from breaching!"

Connehan risked a look at the four Pirates firing at them; he managed to see that they were slowly advancing into the engine room before a blast shot by too close to his head for comfort. He quickly got behind the crates again. "This isn't good," he called, shouting to be heard over the fire.

"Thank you, I hadn't figured that out," Jacobs replied.

"What did I say about keeping your complaints to yourself?!"

"I'm sorry! Maybe I'm just unhappy that, although I had a very peaceful career as a biologist, I have been pinned down under fire no less than two times today!"

"Can we focus?!" R-Stl grunted.

"They're advancing on us," Connehan called. "We need to drive them back."

"How?!" Jacobs yelled.

"I dunno, maybe by shooting at them?!"

"And how do you propose we do that?!"

"Like this!" Connehan suddenly shot up, pointed his gun at the oncoming Pirates, and loosed several blasts. The Pirates aimed at him, but were forced to scatter under his barrage. R-Stl joined him, using charged Dark Beam shots to keep the Pirates moving, lest they be frozen in place.

"Didn't you handle an entire Pirate battalion down on the moon?" Connehan asked as he kept firing. "Shouldn't these guys be a piece of cake for you?"

"I had my ship and a wide-open battlefield to help me down there," R-Stl grunted in response. "These close quarters make it more difficult. But if you don't want my help…"

"Forget I asked," Connehan answered. He looked down at the biologist. "Jacobs, get up here and help us!"

Jacobs was pale as a sheet. He clung tightly onto his gun, and shook his head, not meeting the eyes of the officer.

"Jacobs, dammit, I need you now! Get up here and–"

A shot from one of the Pirates hit him. It barely nicked his face, but the force was enough to send him reeling. He landed in a heap next to Jacobs, barely conscious. His eyes fluttered open, and managed to focus on something that was moving near the reactor. It was the Pirate they had shot when they first entered, and he was now taking careful aim at the back of R-Stl's head.

He swore, but in his state, it was barely audible. Jacobs leaned close to him. "Connehan! You all right?!"

"Look out," Connehan rasped, pointing up at Alpha. "Shoot, before he can…"

Alpha must have realized they saw him, for he suddenly changed targets and fired at them. The shot missed, but barely. Jacobs leapt back; Connehan tried to move, but was too weak. "Dammit, Jacobs," he growled, "Shoot!"

Jacobs shot. He shot without thinking, hesitating, or even aiming. The blast went high, striking a girder near the ceiling of the engine room, far above its intended target.

"You _idiot_," Connehan rasped.

The girder collapsed, crashing downwards. Alpha glanced up, and barely had a second to get out of the way before it struck the floor, bringing a good deal of wreckage with it. Alpha was lost to their view.

"You very, _very_ lucky idiot," Connehan managed before he passed out.

Jacobs made sure Connehan was still breathing before he shut his eyes, gritted his teeth, counted to five, and joined R-Stl in firing at the rest of the Pirates. They had taken cover behind debris near the entryway, each side keeping the other pinned down. It was a stalemate, until reinforcements came or until someone got lucky and hit their target. R-Stl was doing a good job, but the Pirates were quick enough to avoid his shots, and he was out of Dark Beam ammo, unable to encase them in the jelly-like substance. Jacobs had no weapons training, and while it was simple enough to point and shoot a gun, most of his shots went wild. Still, their wildness kept the Pirates guessing as to where the next one would land, and unwilling to risk stepping into its path.

Unfortunately, when reinforcements came, they were Pirates. Two of the alien figures appeared in the entry way, and as soon as they had taken the situation in, darted to cover to avoid Jacobs's and R-Stl's fire. They promptly lifted their weapons, and fired—at the other Pirates.

Jacobs stopped firing, caught completely off-guard by the situation. R-Stl was also taken aback, but he was looking at one of the new Pirates, focusing on him. "It's him," he said quietly, in awe.

"It's who?" Jacobs asked, perplexed.

"The Pirate who helped me save Samus!"

"Wha-?" Jacobs looked up at the Pirate, confused. "How can you tell? And how did he get out of the brig?"

"Does it matter?!" R-Stl replied urgently. "The other Pirates—they're distracted! Fire, now, before they have time to react!" Without waiting for Jacobs to respond, he began shooting. Bolts of light crossed the room; several of them merely left burn marks on the walls, but one of them hit a Pirate, who promptly caught on fire; he burned away to nothing in a few seconds.

Jacobs took a moment to overcome his own confusion and began firing, too. R-Stl took care of most of them; the rogue Pirates seemed unwilling to kill their own themselves, but laid down enough suppressing fire for the other two to finish them off. At last, there was only one left; a stray shot from Jacobs caught him in the shoulder. He spun around and fell.

At last, the engine room fell silent. Jacobs and R-Stl arose unsurely from their hiding space. R-Stl looked at the Pirate he did not recognize. "Who are you?" he asked.

"LA-SRU-91704-Gamma. But you can just call me Gamma." Gamma motioned to the other Pirate. "And this is your prisoner."

"We've met," R-Stl said.

"He says he doesn't have a designation," Gamma said, "so I just call him Bob."

"What?!" the nameless Pirate asked, surprised. "You do not call me Bob!"

"I do now."

"I like it," Jacobs said.

"No," the Pirate grumbled. "We are not calling me Bob."

"Well, we have to call you _some_thing," Gamma said.

"Didn't we already have this conversation?" the Pirate grumbled. He let out a sigh. "Fine. If you need to name me, then you can call me–"

"All right," a new voice came from behind them. "Drop your weapons, all of you."

They spun around to see Alpha on a catwalk above them, his armor covered in dents and scratches. He held a weapon in each hand, keeping them trained on his antagonists.

"We can take him," R-Stl murmured.

"I wouldn't risk it," Gamma muttered back. "Alpha's a dick, but he's an excellent shot."

"You've learned to fear me, I see," Alpha called, smiling. "It's a shame that fear did not keep you on the right side, Gamma. I promise you, you will pay for your treachery."

Gamma remained silent.

"It seems to be our day for betrayals," Alpha continued, "And my day for killing those responsible. Now, if you will all kindly remain there, I'll set the charges and be on my way."

"On my signal, all of you get down," Gamma said, barely loud enough for Jacobs, R-Stl, and the Pirate to hear. He reached for his weapon and punched a few buttons on the side. It began glowing.

"What was that, Gamma?" Alpha snapped, looking down at his former second-in-command.

"I said, 'I have a better idea'," Gamma responded.

In a flash, he was dashing up the steps toward Alpha. The surprised Pirate commander began shooting, but Gamma was already out of his line of fire; the others dove for cover quickly enough to avoid the shots. Gamma tackled Alpha, and the two of them plummeted through the air, landing behind some debris. They grappled for a while, but the stronger Alpha soon gained the upper hand. He pointed his weapon at Gamma's head. "Any last words, traitor?" he grunted.

"A few," Gamma responded. He cleared his throat. "Alpha?"

"Yes?"

"I hate you."

Too late, the commander heard the sound of Gamma's weapon charging to critical levels. He dropped his second-in-command, but Gamma grabbed him and held him close as the charge increased beyond the safety point.

As Jacobs climbed to his feet, he saw a bright flash and heard a loud noise coming from the other side of the pile. R-Stl was already climbing it by the time Jacobs made it there; he turned around once he got to the top. "Dead," he said simply. "It looks like Gamma's weapon self-destructed."

Jacobs glanced back at the nameless Pirate, who stood somberly in the doorway. "That's two Pirates who've risked their lives to help us today," he said softly. "What's going on?"

"Things are obviously changing," R-Stl replied.

A groan from Connehan cut off any further conversation. Jacobs ran over to him and propped his head up. The officer's eyes blinked open. "How long was I out?" he asked as soon as his mouth was working.

"Not long," Jacobs said. "But long enough for us to take care of the rest of the Pirates."

Connehan tried to get up. "Really? We–"

"Don't get up," Jacobs said. "You may have a concussion."

"What are you, a doctor?" Connehan mumbled.

"Well, I'm a biologist, so…"

Connehan sighed. "Never mind. I'm fine, really." He sat up slowly, shook his head to clear it, and looked around. "You guys really took care of them?"

"With a little help," Jacobs said. "I even got one of the Pirates myself."

"Really?" He glanced around at the dead Pirates, and pointed at one of the bodies. "Was it that one?"

Jacobs looked at it for a second. "Yeah, I think so. How could you tell?"

"He's still alive and reaching for his gun," Connehan answered.

The Pirate shot up only to meet his end on a blast from R-Stl.

"Oops," Jacobs said, lowering his eyes.

"Never mind, kid," Connehan sighed, rising to his feet. "You did a good job."

"Indeed," R-Stl agreed. "Just remember that on most species, the shoulder is _not _a weak point."

Jacobs blushed.

Connehan reached for his communicator. "This is Connehan," he said. "We've taken care of the Pirates in the engine room."

"Good," came the reply, the voice laden with relief. "The security teams have managed to stop any of the others from breaching. That leaves only one left."

The four of them exchanged a worried glance. "What do you mean, one left?" Connehan asked.

"The one that slipped out during the firefight in the engine room, of course," the bridge responded. "Didn't you see him?"

"We were in a _firefight_, and he was _invisible_," Connehan growled. "No, we didn't see him."

"Oh." There was a pause. "Oh, no."

"Where is he?!"

"Hang on…" There was some frantic button-pushing on the other end. "He's on level four, corridor F."

Connehan was already out the door. "Who's closest?"

"You are, sir."

"Wonderful. Where is he headed?"

"I'm not sure. There's not a lot in that area; storage, a few empty quarters, laboratories…"

Jacobs suddenly grabbed at his communicator. "Wait, laboratories? Which ones?"

"Er—A through D."

Jacobs looked at Connehan, the blood draining from his face. "Samus is in lab C."

They took off at a sprint.

* * *

Theta wasn't sure how it had happened. He had done nothing more than follow Alpha's orders; they should have been victorious.

Perhaps that was the problem? Perhaps Alpha was being too emotional—allowing his anger to cloud his judgment? Perhaps, if they had been more careful, gotten reinforcements or attacked the sensor bay so that the humans couldn't track them, they'd be better off.

Theta shook his head. That was Gamma's corrupting influence talking. It didn't matter why the mission had gone awry, only that it had, and now, he must fulfill the one part of it that can be completed.

He arrived outside the laboratory in which his scanners told him Samus was being kept. He began tapping away at the keypad, hoping he could get inside without too much trouble.

"What's going on?" a voice suddenly came from the keypad. "Who's there?" A camera extended from underneath it and focused on him. "What the…"

_A computer_, Theta realized. "Let me in," he commanded.

"Oh, like that's going to happen," Adam responded. The camera moved around in a motion that reminded Theta of rolling one's eyes.

"Very well," he sighed. He didn't have time to be sidetracked arguing with this computer. He set a small charge on the door, and ran down the corridor as the timer counted down.

"What are you doing?" Adam called, a moment before the explosion knocked the door in.

Theta quickly ran back and entered, waving his arms to help clear the smoke. "Oh," Adam said. "_That's_ what you're doing."

Several alarms went off. Theta smiled. "It will do you no good. None of the teams are close enough. I will kill Samus long before they arrive to finish me." The smoke had partially cleared now, and he found his eyes focusing on Samus's form. He took aim with his weapon, but as soon as he could make out details, he hesitated.

Samus was in a large glass tube filled with some sort of fluid. Multiple smaller tubes and hoses were connected to various parts of her body. Under it all, she was wearing a form-fitting tank top and shorts. Most interestingly, her left forearm was encased in a device that ended in a rather large gun barrel.

Theta was confused, but he resolved that whatever was going on, it didn't matter. Samus was even more vulnerable in this state; all it would take is one shot to finish her off. He took aim again before being distracted by a red glowing light. It was a timer, connected to the machinery surrounding the tube, and it was counting down. He didn't recognize the human digits, but it seemed very close to zero.

"Computer," he called, trying to sound more sure of himself than he was. "What is that countdown for?"

"Oh, that?" Adam responded. "That's just when your worst nightmare will come true."

The last digit suddenly blinked to the same numeral as all the others; Theta realized that it must be zero. The fluid quickly drained from the tube, and it began to lift from around her. Panicking, Theta opened fire. The tube shattered, and the small lab was filled with smoke as his weapon scorched everything in range. He only stopped firing when it overheated. He waited, looking around through the smoke, quivering in fear. He tried to calm himself. _I got her,_ he thought. _I must have. Nothing can stop us now._

Then a human fist came out of the smoke and knocked him back into the hallway.

Theta tried to scramble to his feet, but stopped as he saw Samus emerge from the smoke. She was out of her suit, wearing only the same shorts and tank top she had on in the tube, but there was still something impressive about her. He was so in awe, he barely managed to duck out of the way when her right fist swung around at him again. He rolled down the hall a few feet, spun around, and shot at her. The bolt hit her in the torso, leaving a burn mark on her tank top, but doing little else. She looked up at him, smiled, and said, "My turn." She raised the makeshift arm cannon on her left hand, and fired.

Jacobs, R-Stl, Connehan, and the nameless Pirate rounded a corner to find Samus facing Theta's frozen form. She took a step back, took aim with her arm cannon, and fired. A small missile came out, raced down the hall, and shattered the frozen Pirate as soon as it struck him.

Connehan turned to Jacobs. "What did you _do_ to her?"

"It's a long story," the biologist sighed.

A light on Connehan's communicator began blinking. He looked down at it. "Well, you'd better be ready to tell it. Admiral Dane is hailing us."

"He's early," Jacobs noted.

"Someone's screwing with our best bounty hunter's DNA," Connehan replied. "I'd be a bit impatient if I were in his position, too."

Samus walked over toward them. Connehan took a tentative step forward. "You all right, Samus?"

"I think so," she said. "I took care of that Pirate who was trying to kill me. But I think I'm a little dizzy." She pointed over his shoulder. "I could swear that I see another Pirate standing behind you."

Connehan glanced back at the nameless Pirate. "No, he's actually standing behind me."

"Oh." Samus paused for a moment, swaying uneasily. "Wait, why is there a Pirate standing behind you?"

"We'll explain later," Connehan said, taking a hold of her shoulders. "Right now, we need to get to the conference room and answer some questions for Admiral Dane. You feel up to that?"

"Sure," she said. After a moment, she added, "I think."

"Good." Connehan turned to the others. "All right, Pirate, we don't have time to put you back in the brig, so you'd best come with us. No funny business. R-Stl, keep an eye on him."

The two aliens nodded their agreement.

"Jacobs, help Samus," Connehan said. "I'm going to go ahead and brief Dane on the parts of this mess that I understand." The biologist ran up and propped Samus up on his shoulder. Connehan promptly took off towards the conference room.

"All right," Jacobs said, "Let's go." He began leading the others down the hall, careful to keep Samus balanced on his small shoulder.

"Jacobs," she said softly.

He glanced up at her. "Yeah?"

"It worked," she said. "The infusion…"

"We'll see," Jacobs said. "You can use the arm cannon. That's not enough information to say that the infusion itself is working the way we hoped."

"I guess you're right," Samus sighed. "But in any case, you saved my life. Thanks."

Jacobs blushed. "You're welcome," he responded.


	13. Technobabble

**Author's Note:** The title of this chapter fits well. However, I tried to make it make sense, and while the science is completely fictional, it should work out OK. If there's anything that's too obscure to understand, let me know.

* * *

The giant face of Admiral Dane leaned against the side of his chair, drumming his fingers on the desk as he looked out of the viewscreen to the assembled group. When he finally spoke, his voice rang out of the speakers into the conference room. "I don't quite know where to begin," he grunted, his eyes shifting from one member of the odd group to the next.

Jacobs bit his lip. He was here to be questioned, but in the meantime, Dane was looking at a renegade Pirate and a suitless Samus with a makeshift arm cannon covering her left hand seated at the same table with a Luminoth, a human doctor, and only one face he would recognize. He could understand that the admiral was having a problem figuring out which question to ask first.

Dane sat up. "All right, let's try this. Connehan, why the hell is there a Pirate sitting in your conference room?"

"We didn't have time to take him to the brig, sir," Connehan replied, matter-of-factly.

"Oh, so he's a prisoner?"

"Yes," Connehan answered, at the exact same moment that R-Stl said "No."

Dane slinked back into his chair, lowering his head further down the screen. "I can tell this is going to be a long day," he sighed. "So, what is he?"

"A prisoner," Connehan said again, shooting a glare at R-Stl.

"An ally," R-Stl countered, meeting the human's gaze defiantly. "He's saved our lives multiple times."

Dane cocked an eyebrow. "Is this true?"

"Well, he saved Samus's life earlier today, and all of our lives just a moment ago," Connehan answered. "So, technically, he's saved each of us once."

"Ah, but he also saved my life when he saved Samus, and he saved Samus when he saved the rest of us."

"Well, if you want to split hairs…"

"This whole _conversation_ is splitting hairs," Dane grumbled. "Look, you can do whatever the hell you want with that Pirate later, but for now, I want him out of this room. He shouldn't be hearing this."

"What, exactly, is this?" R-Stl asked.

"That's what I want you to tell me," Dane sighed. "Get the Pirate out of here, and then Dr. Jacobs can tell me what the hell it is he's done to Samus."

R-Stl turned to the Pirate. "I'm sorry, but–"

"It doesn't matter," he responded. "If any of this is important, you can tell me later—assuming, of course, it is decided I can be trusted with it." Without waiting for an escort, he turned and swept out of the room.

"Now," Dane's imposing figure said, reclining in his chair. "Where were we?"

Jacobs chose this opportunity to rise from his seat, fingering his lapel and trying not to sweat too visibly. He had known this moment was coming since he decided to help Samus, but that did little to calm his nerves. Nevertheless, he took a deep breath and looked the projection of the admiral straight in the eye. "Very well, sir," he began. "I assume you know who I am."

"Kevin Jacobs, PhD.," Dane confirmed. "I looked up your file. I don't suppose you'd care to explain to us what it is you did to Samus."

Jacobs nodded. "All right. I suppose I'd better start from the beginning. A few months ago, while investigating the wreckage of the BSL station with the _Zodiac_, I encountered and captured a surviving X-parasite specimen."

Connehan and Dane both leapt out of their chairs. "_WHAT?!_"

"Knowing that you would react that way you are now, I chose to keep it a secret," Jacobs said, pursing his lips. "But after getting shot at by Samus's suit, and realizing that she would be left defenseless, I had an idea."

"Wait, wait," Connehan said, rubbing his temples. "You're telling me you've had an X-parasite in captivity for _all this time?_"

Jacobs simply nodded. R-Stl crossed his arms, watching the humans with a wary eye.

"Do you have _any_ idea how much trouble you're going to be in?!" the officer shouted, leaning forward on the table. "How much the Federation wants to get their hands on that thing? If you had come forward about this when you should have, we could—"

"That's _enough_, Connehan," Dane growled.

The officer looked up at the screen, a little taken aback. "Sir?"

"Let the man finish," he said.

Jacobs was surprised as well, but soon regained his composure. "Thank you, sir. I remembered something Adam had said in one of his reports on Samus's progress through the station; one of the X had assimilated the Varia suit data from the download we were trying to send Samus. After she defeated the parasite, she absorbed the Varia tech herself. This led Adam to the conclusion that the X have the capacity to process data organically." He paused to make sure everybody understood what he had just said.

"And…?" Dane prompted.

"I realized that we could grant Samus the same—or, at least, similar—abilities that the Power Suit had given her by using these organic processors."

"That's what you meant when you said you'd screw with her DNA," Connehan said, temporarily forgetting the captive X.

"I've spent a while—ah—studying the parasite, to see if there really was a way we could use them to humankind's benefit," the biologist continued. "So far, the only conclusion I've reached is that they are too dangerous to take the risk. But I had also isolated the organelles responsible for the organic data processing. After receiving that message from Ridley, I realized I had to find a way to replicate those organelles in her own cells. It took a while, but I managed to find a way. They've been propagating within her for a few hours, and should have taken hold by now."

The others in the room went slightly slack-jawed. "You're telling me that there are bits of X in Samus?" Dane asked.

"In her cells, yes." Jacobs couldn't hide his nerves at all; sweat was virtually dripping off his forehead.

"And that didn't strike you at all as the least bit idiotic?!" Dane growled. "You just said these creatures are too dangerous to risk experimenting on, but you…!"

"It's the Metroid DNA," Jacobs explained hurriedly. "The vaccine Samus was given after she was initially attacked by the X."

"It allowed her to absorb the X-parasites, use them for energy or ammunition," Connehan remembered.

"And it allowed her cells to assimilate the X organelles without destroying them altogether or letting them grow strong enough to change her," Jacobs finished. "At least, in a way we didn't want."

"What?" Dane asked, clearly lost.

"She can absorb the X's organic processors the same way she could absorb their abilities before," Jacobs said. "Then they will allow her to access abilities—like the high jump and morph ball—that she needed the suit to use before."

"Wait, wait, wait," Dane said slowly. "So what you're telling me, is that Samus can now regain all the abilities of her Power Suit—_without_ her Power Suit?"

"Exactly."

There was a long pause as the implications of the statement sunk in.

Dane bit his lip for a moment. "…and there's no danger?"

"Even if there was, the Metroid DNA would keep it in check," Jacobs replied, beginning to feel more confident. "I wouldn't have done this if I thought it wasn't perfectly safe for Samus."

"And the weird cannon thing on her arm…?" Dane asked warily.

"The data for her beam and missile weapons exists in Samus now," Jacobs said. "But she still needs a way to fire them. This weapon was based on her own arm cannon, only instead of reading data from the Power Suit to configure its beams, it reads data from Samus herself." He pointed to the device on Samus's arm. "It also has a matter-energy converter, a miniaturized version of the one that maintained the Power Suit's shields and ammunition."

"And you just happened to have this thing lying around?" Dane asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Jacobs hesitated. "A… colleague of mine had been reverse-engineering it from Pirate beam trooper weapons for some time now."

"You mean Justin Bailey?" R-Stl asked.

"A colleague of mine whom I _will not name_," Jacobs hissed at him.

"Oh," the Luminoth replied. He fell silent.

Dane paused for a moment, sitting back in his chair and interlocking his fingers. "I want you to send me the specs on everything," he said at last. "I want to send this to all the scientists I can, to make sure it's safe." He leaned closer to the monitor. "Now, there's one person I haven't heard from yet. Samus?"

Every eye in the room now shifted to the bounty hunter. She had remained silent so far, leaning back and looking on as the others in the room questioned each other. Now that the attention had shifted to her, she sat up in her chair, faced the admiral, and shrugged. "I have to admit, I feel fine," she said.

"No negative side effects?"

"Not yet, at least. I feel…" she looked down. "I don't know. Different." She pointed at her chest. "A Pirate shot me here a few minutes ago. But now I'm fine."

Dane blinked. "…are you sure?"

"I'm a little dizzy," she said, waving her arm. "But Jacobs says that's from exhaustion. Apparently spending an hour getting infused with X DNA doesn't count as rest."

"She'll be fine tomorrow," Jacobs assured the others.

"Was she really just shot?" Dane asked, glancing at Connehan.

"I didn't see it myself, but there was one Pirate who went to attack her, just as Jacobs's… uh… 'infusion' was finishing up." He gestured to the woman. "And that _is_ a pretty nasty scorch mark on her clothes."

"The X infusion gave her a tougher carapace," Jacobs explained.

Samus frowned. "My skin doesn't feel any different."

"It shouldn't," the biologist replied. "Your skin is still as soft and—uh—I mean, it has the same texture, but it's very durable, almost to par with combat armor. If I'm not mistaken, the infusion will also give her the X's adaptability, allowing her to survive in harsh environments."

Dane shook his head. "I still want to see it with my own eyes. This whole infusion thing—will it really work?"

Samus answered by entering morph ball form.

Everyone in the room gaped at her, including Jacobs; he knew this would happen, or at least, probably could, but was still shocked to see it. There had been a quick noise, a brief flare of light, and the morph ball was sitting on the chair beside him. It had a clothy texture to it, opposing the metallic surface the morph ball normally had, and was in the same shades of red and black of Samus's clothes. Still, Jacobs supposed, it was better than nothing—and at least it wasn't a disgusting, fleshy mass, as he had feared it might become.

Samus unrolled after a few moments. "Wow," she said. "That's going to take some getting used to." She checked herself briefly. "But in the end, it's not all that different from when I did it with the power suit." She turned to Dane. "So yes, it works."

Dane closed his mouth, shook his head, and sat back. "I… I'll call you back, Connehan." The screen went blank.

Connehan sat back and sighed heavily. "I think he has the right idea. We'll reconvene as soon as Dane picks his jaw up off the ground." He looked over at Samus. "You've been through a lot, so I suggest you try and get some sleep. Jacobs, R-Stl, escort her to her quarters, then try to get some rest yourselves." He stood up. "I'll be in my quarters."

As Connehan left, Jacobs crossed over to Samus. He offered an arm, but she waved it away. "I'm fine," she said. She slowly stood up, and started towards the door. "Like I said, this'll take some getting used to, but I think I can handle it."

When Samus made it out the door without either of their help, R-Stl turned to Jacobs. "I'm going to find the Pirate, to make sure no overzealous trooper's tried shooting him yet. You stay with Samus." He glided down the hall before the biologist could word a protest.

Jacobs turned to Samus as they continued to the temporary quarters that had been prepared for her. "You sure you're all right? The infusion was completely experimental. I don't know what's going to happen."

Samus shrugged. "Neither do I. I never do." She stopped, and looked at her hand. "But whatever does happen, I've now got the power to deal with it." She clenched the hand into a fist, then turned to the biologist. "For that, Jacobs, thanks."

He blushed again. "You're welcome." She was definitely starting to treat him with a good deal of respect, since he had risked his career to save hers.

They continued on in silence for a while.

"I'm still sore about you killing my suit, though," Samus said.

"That wasn't me!" Jacobs protested.

"I'm sure."


	14. Mission Briefing

Connehan managed to claw his way to consciousness upon hearing the irritating, piercing sound of his alarm go off. He groggily reached out his hand and slammed it down on the snooze button. A moment later, he realized he had missed completely, and only succeeded in smashing his hand against the table. Cursing profusely, he tried it again, and managed to shut down the alarm. He then proceeded to roll out of his bed, hitting the floor with a dull thud. The second painful impact of the morning brought him more or less to his senses, and as the events of the previous day came rushing back, he shot up. He grabbed the clock, gazing at it as the glowing blur slowly solidified into numbers in his mind.

_I've been asleep for ten hours?_ He was dumbstruck. He was normally lucky to get more than six hours of sleep a day; his body had adjusted to that so much he had a hard time believing he could stay asleep for that long. Then again, it had been a long day and had left him quite drained. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't that anxious to meet the new day, either. Still, as long as he was up, he might as well get to work.

He looked at the alarm again. It had gone off because he had received a message from engineering. He let out a sigh, then crossed over to the drink dispenser on one wall and drew himself a cup of coffee. Once he had the caffeinated drink firmly gripped in one hand, he sat down in front of his desk and began checking the messages.

"Engineering report," the text read. "After yesterday's battle, we've been performing extensive repair. As of 0930, we have the hyperdrive operational again."

_So far, so good._ Connehan took a sip of his coffee, remembered that he hated coffee, and spat it across the room. He went to the drink dispenser and drew a cup of tea instead before returning to the desk.

"In addition, your request for additional shipboard weapons has been approved by the Federation Naval Commission. The weapons will be available when we return to dry-sock, and we are making initial preparations for their installation now.

_Jacobs will be glad to hear that,_ Connehan thought, smiling a bit himself. The next Pirate scout ship that tried to mess with the _Oberon_ would not find her such easy prey.

"Samus Aran and Kevin Jacobs have not left their quarters as of this sending. Per your request, the rogue Pirate has not been led to the brig, but has been put in guest quarters with a constant guard. R-Stl, in the meantime, is watching the guards. Finally, fleet Admiral Dane has been trying to contact you. He left a message marked 'private,' which has been stored in your personal files."

That was the end of the report, so Connehan closed out the message and opened the one from Dane. The admiral's face appeared on the screen. "Connehan, call me when you have a chance. We need to discuss our friend, Dr. Jacobs." The screen went blank.

Connehan rolled his eyes. _He leaves me a message, but can't be bothered to actually tell me anything in it?_ Nevertheless, he brought up the communications console, and hailed the GFS _Olympus_.

A communications officer appeared on the screen. "Officer Connehan, Admiral Dane's been expecting your call. I'll patch you through immediately."

Another pause before Dane's imposing form finally appeared in front of Connehan again. "It's about time you got up," he growled.

"Sorry, sir. Yesterday's events took a lot out of me."

"Understandable. But I'm anxious to get some matters resolved. Where is Jacobs now?"

"He's still in his quarters. I imagine he's still asleep."

Dane thought for a moment. "All right, we'll keep it that way for now. Once I've told you what you need to hear, though, call a meeting. Bring everyone to a conference room and give them this information."

"And by 'everyone,' you mean…"

"Samus, Jacobs, R-Stl, and that Pirate. He factors into our plan, too."

Connehan perked up. "Plan? We have a plan?"

Dane only smirked.

Connehan sat back in his chair as he drained the last of his tea. The conference room doors swished open and Jacobs entered, escorted by a young ensign. Connehan turned toward them. "Thank you, Christa. You can go now."

The ensign nodded at him, then turned and started back toward her post. The doors swished shut behind Jacobs, who looked supremely uncomfortable. "Where is everyone else?" he asked warily.

"On their way. But I wanted to talk to you in private, first."

"Oh." Connehan could almost hear the young biologist gulping.

Connehan turned on the room's main screen; it displayed some of the data Jacobs had sent to the Federation Medical Corps the night before. "The Corps has reviewed everything you sent them, and as far as they can tell, Samus is in no immediate danger from the X-infusion you gave her."

Jacobs let out a heavy sigh of relief.

"But."

The biologist tensed up again. Connehan resisted the urge to smirk.

"Given all that we know about this procedure and its side-effects—which, as you know, borders on _nothing_—the Corps decided that Samus will need near-constant medical monitoring to ensure that, if something does start going wrong, we can catch it in the act."

Jacobs nodded enthusiastically. "I agree, wholeheartedly."

"Medical monitoring performed by you."

He blinked. "What?"

At that moment, the doors opened once more, and Samus strolled in. She was looking much better this morning; she held the new, makeshift arm cannon as confidently and readily as she had her old one, and she no longer looked like she was about to keel over from exhaustion. She gave the two men a confident smile as she answered. "Connehan," she said.

"Samus, good timing," the officer said, returning her smile. "I was just telling Jacobs how he'll need to come with you on your next mission."

She blinked. "What?"

"That's what _I _said," Jacobs agreed.

"Samus, there might still be complications from the infusion," Connehan continued. "We'll need to keep an eye on you, in case anything goes wrong. We'll have the arm cannon constantly gather information about your condition and send it to us."

Samus glanced at Jacobs. "Can it do that?"

Jacobs shrugged. "Well, maybe … I mean, it's wired into your body, obviously, but I don't know enough about it to say if it can gather data like that…"

"You needn't worry," Connehan assured him. "A certain Dr. Justin Bailey told us exactly how to do it, once we asked him about his involvement in this little project."

Jacobs turned white and fell silent. Samus sat down, glowering.

"You said the Medical Corps agreed that there was no danger," Jacobs said after a while. "If something would go wrong, they would have spotted it."

"Probably, but they don't want to take the risk. As you know, we just don't have enough information."

"You certainly took enough scans of my body to get that information," Samus grumbled. "Look, Connehan, everything we've got says I'm perfectly stable."

"You _appear_ stable, but if something goes wrong, we need to spot it and nip it in the bud. You've got Metroid DNA and X-Parasite organelles on top of your human blood now, and we can barely imagine the number of things that could go wrong." Connehan let out a sigh; he was getting tired of this.

"Couldn't they monitor me remotely?" Samus pressed. "As long as he's going to get telemetry from the arm cannon, he doesn't have to be with me to receive it, right?"

"No, that won't work." This time it was Jacobs who spoke, although sadly. "If something were to go wrong, I'd need to be nearby enough to administer treatment. I hate to say it, but… I think he's right."

Samus looked from one of them to the other, reading their expressions, before letting out an exasperated sigh and covering her face with her one free hand. "Fine. I'll take him along."

Jacobs nodded, not able to bring himself to meet her gaze.

"All right," Connehan said. "We've already got the medical station set up in the _Scorpion_, so Jacobs will be able to work from there while Samus carries out the mission."

They both looked up at him. "The _Scorpion_?" Jacobs asked. "R-Stl's ship? We're taking that?"

Connehan nodded, smiling.

"Huh," Samus mused. "I didn't think he'd like the idea of us running off with his only ship."

"He doesn't," Connehan replied, his smile fading. "And that's why he's… er… he's coming along, too."

"_What?_"

Connehan's reply was interrupted by the door opening once again to admit the Luminoth in question. He felt all the eyes in the room coming to rest on him, and looked around unsurely. "What?"

"Hello, R-Stl," Connehan sighed. "I just informed them that you'll be loaning us the _Scorpion_ for this mission, and accompanying it."

R-Stl nodded as he glided over to his chair and sat down. "And?"

"And…" Connehan hesitated. Jacobs was just a biologist; he actually _wanted_ to stay off the front line. But R-Stl might not take rejection so well, especially from a woman whose life he had helped save at least twice the day before. Connehan bit his lip. "I don't think Samus wants…"

"No, it's fine," Samus said.

Jacobs and Connehan turned to her, shocked. "It… is?"

She shrugged. "Well, yeah. I'd prefer to go alone, but R-Stl definitely knows what he's doing when it comes to combat. He can take care of himself without me needing to babysit him."

Connehan shot a glance at Jacobs, who shared his surprise, before shrugging. "Well, that was surprisingly painless," he muttered to himself. "We might get this mission underway yet."

"Yeah," Samus asked. "What _is_ the mission, anyway?"

"Our next guest should be able to explain that."

"You're bringing in _another_ person?" Jacobs asked, incredulous.

Connehan bit his lip. "Well, 'person' isn't the world I would use, but…"

Right on cue, the doors swished open. In walked two federation marines, ushering between them the captive pirate.

"Oh, fun," Jacobs muttered, trying to hide under the desk.

Samus's glare shot from the pirate to Connehan. "What is _he_ doing here?!"

"Actually, I don't think it technically has a gender," Jacobs offered.

Everyone glared at him.

"Right," he muttered, going back to trying to hide.

"He's here," Connehan went on, "because he's coming too. Our boys in intelligence had a friendly chat with him last night, and he told us a few relevant things… like the location of the current pirate stronghold."

Everyone at the table leaned forward. "What?!"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, _wait_," Samus said, rubbing her temples. "If he's already provided us with the location, why does he have to come along? That makes no sense."

"Because," Connehan said, giving the Pirate an odd look, "the new pirate base has specialized security, which he knows how to bypass. If you fly in without him or someone else that can bypass the system, you're liable to be shot down in a heartbeat."

"That's never stopped me before," Samus pointed out.

"But we can't risk that this time," Connehan sighed. "Not with everything else that's going on. You're suitless now, and you're taking along the three stooges here."

R-Stl and the Pirate exchanged confused glances. The Luminoth leaned over to Jacobs. "What is a stooge?" he whispered.

"I'll tell you later," Jacobs muttered, biting back any retort he'd give under less serious conditions.

"If intelligence had a 'friendly chat' with him, then why didn't he tell us how to bypass security on our own?" Samus was asking.

"I don't think you understand," Connehan said, pursing his lips. "When I said 'friendly chat,' I meant it. He was fully cooperative, and offered up information on his own."

Samus looked at the pirate with a slightly shocked expression. "You—he did?"

"And I can't tell you how to get past the security system," the pirate answered, "Because I don't know myself. The system itself, and the method of getting past it, are changed periodically. The pirates of the base are trained in most of the possible permutations; to impart that knowledge to you could potentially take weeks."

"And we can't count on the Pirates giving us that much time before they make their move," Connehan finished for him. "Especially now that they have X-parasites, we need to take them out before they can rally their forces. And there's nobody in the galaxy better at stopping pirates than you, Samus." He came over and sat beside her, looking her dead in the eye. "We need you on this, but if you're going, these three need to come. This is one time when we can't let you go alone; you're too valuable and we know too little about your current condition to risk it. Still, you're a bounty hunter, and your taking this mission is entirely up to you. So, what'll it be? Will you help us once more?"

Samus remained silent for a long time, then sighed and shook her head. "Who are you trying to fool, Connehan? You already know my answer."

The Federation officer stood up, smiling triumphantly. "Very well. Adam, if you would do the honors?"

The console in the room lit up, the screen displaying information on the X-Parasites. "Here's what we know," Adam's synthesized voice spilled into the room. "The Pirates have both acquired and replicated a sample of X, and have at least been able to use it to create the retro-virus that took over Samus's suit. However, the fact that Ridley said they'd bide their time before their next attack implies that they're still perfecting whatever technology they've developed from working with the X. We need to stop them before they finish."

The display changed to a star chart, with three locations marked. "This is our current location," Adam said as one marker began to flash. "Hyperdrive functionality was restored to the _Oberon _this morning, but she still needs repairs and is far too vulnerable to simply jump into orbit around a pirate-controlled planet, especially one with advanced security. She'll take us partway before dropping us off here." Another dot on the map lit up. "The _Scorpion_ is slower, but it's still capable of interstellar flight, and as we speak, she's being outfitted with an interface that I can use. Don't worry, R-Stl, I won't be completely hijacking your ship. But I am Samus's CO, and it's not like I can just climb aboard by myself anymore."

R-Stl nodded. "I understand."

Adam continued quickly. "The pirate will guide us safely through security and we'll land on the planet. After that, Samus and R-Stl will infiltrate the pirate base. R-Stl, you're technically non-military and I can't give you orders, but Samus has much more experience with this sort of thing, so I strongly suggest you follow her lead."

"She did save my planet, Adam," the Luminoth remarked. "I'm quite aware of how experienced she is."

"Well, good. Jacobs, you will remain on the ship. Monitor Samus's vital signs, and be ready to go if anything starts to go wrong. Pirate…"

"I'll remain on the ship also, I presume," the pirate interrupted.

"Yes," Adam finished. "I'm sorry, it's just that…"

The pirate nodded. "You can't trust me. And, to be honest, I can't blame you. Besides, I have no desire to go into combat."

Jacobs considered bringing up the fact that the pirate had helped save Samus's life, but decided it was better not to. Adam was right; even after everything he had done, they still barely knew if they could trust the pirate or not. He could have given them false coordinates, or be leading them into a trap, or defect back to the pirates the instant they landed. Besides, Jacobs was still trying to hide under the desk, so he wanted to avoid drawing any more attention to himself.

Although he now realized that he'd be alone on a ship with a computer and a being that had only days ago worked for the enemy. _Oh, good,_ he thought to himself.

Adam resumed the briefing. "After that, Samus, you just do what you do best. These guys just might be the last of the pirates in the galaxy, so if we take them out, it could very well bring an end to our conflict with them. We leave later today, as soon as the necessary modifications have been made to the _Scorpion_. After that, it's pirate-base-ho."

The camera on the console moved to focus on Samus, and Adam's voice had a humorous edge to it the next time he spoke. "Any objections, lady?"


	15. Launch

"Ready to go?"

Samus turned to see Connehan coming through the doors, approaching her where she stood in the middle of the docking bay. She managed a weak smile. "_I _am, at least. No sign of the Three Stooges, though."

Connehan let out a quick loud laugh before dissolving into a rather forced coughing fit and regaining his composure. "Ahem. That wasn't funny."

"Hey, you said it before I did."

"Yes, well..." He smiled, then shook his head, suppressing it. "It's still not funny."

"Of course not." She turned forward again as Connehan straightened his tie. "So this is the _Scorpion_, huh?"

"That's what R-Stl calls it. What do you think?"

"That cannon is a little..." she paused for a moment. "..._prominent_ for a peace-loving species like the Luminoth, isn't it?"

"I think the Luminoth rethought the whole 'peace-loving' thing some time after the Ing started committing genocide against them," Connehan answered. "According to R-Stl, they disassembled most of the weapons and armor used in the war, but when they started sending out researchers to other planets, they didn't take any chances in arming them against potential threats. Lucky thing, too. That dark cannon probably helped save your life."

"Yeah," she said, her voice softening.

Connehan studied her. "Something wrong?"

"You mean besides the fact that I was ambushed by a small army of Pirates, I lost my Fusion Suit, I've got organelles from X-Parasites floating around in me, and I've got to drag along three others on my latest mission? No, I'm fine."

"Of course." The officer sighed, adjusting his tie again. "Look, Samus... I'm sorry about this, but..."

"Save it," she sighed. "You've made your point. I know why I need them. All three of them."

"But you're still reluctant about taking them along."

"Of course I am," she sighed. "R-Stl seems able to handle himself, but he was never meant to be a warrior. You know what he told me? He was sent out from Aether to do _research_ on Aliehs III's moon. The _Scorpion_ is just a well-armed science vessel."

"That'll make it useful for Jacobs," Connehan noted.

"Jacobs..." She shook her head. "Connehan, he's a _civilian_. He's never been in combat before yesterday, and from what you told me, he didn't exactly perform well under pressure."

"The kid just needs a little practice, is all," he insisted. "I'm sure he'll be able to hit something other than the shoulder eventually."

"Yeah, maybe. With training. But this isn't training, it's a base full of bloodthirsty Space Pirates, and Jacobs won't stand a chance if he gets into a combat situation."

"You'll have to protect him, then."

She let out a harsh laugh. "Of course I will." Connehan tried to say something, but she continued. "And the Pirate. I shouldn't need to tell you why I don't trust him."

"Of course not, but..."

"And we're taking him back to his base? Back to his people? I can't even count the number of ways in which that could end badly."

"I understand," Connehan said softly. "But there's nothing we can do about that now. You need him. You need all three of them."

"I know," Samus grumbled. "But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it."

They stood there in silence for a moment, looking over the Luminoth vessel.

"Samus?" Connehan ventured at last.

"Yeah?"

"You don't like escort missions, do you?"

She smirked. "Look, infiltration, I can handle. Demolition, I can do—although usually not intentionally. Protection, though? I'm a horrible escort. Anything I touch—whether it's on my side or not—dies. Usually in pain."

"Really? Then what about the demolition troopers you had to protect on the Pirate Homeworld? As I recall, you promised to get each one of them through there alive, no matter what it took. And you succeeded. Why do you think that is?"

Samus shrugged. "Luck, I guess."

"Well, in that case," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "Good luck, Samus."

He promptly turned and left. Samus spun around. "Hey!" she called. "I'm not...!"

The hall doors swished shut, cutting off whatever she was about to say. Connehan let out a sigh as he started back towards the bridge. He didn't like the idea of forcing Samus to work with others any more than she did, but it was necessary—at least for now.

He suddenly heard voices approaching from around a corner. "I'm just saying, she doesn't even _like_ us."

"She likes me."

"You're not helping, R-Stl."

He rounded the corner and nearly bumped into Jacobs, R-Stl, and the Pirate. "Officer Connehan!" Jacobs said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Going to my station," Connehan replied, arching an eyebrow. "I need to get ready for the launch. You know, the one that's in just a few minutes?"

"We were just heading to the docking bay ourselves," R-Stl answered. "Is the _Scorpion_ ready for takeoff?"

"As near as we can tell. You'll have to check things out and make sure we did it right, but my men at least got the engines ready to fire, and Adam say's he's adapting to your ship's systems just fine. You can leave as soon as you're ready." He looked down at Jacobs. "Better get a move on. Believe me, Samus isn't the type of woman you want to keep waiting."

"Right," the biologist said, looking off to one side. "See you later, then." They started down the hall again.

A smile tugged at the edge of Connehan's mouth as he nodded to each of them in turn. "Larry, Moe, Curly."

Jacobs shot a glance back at him before continuing forward, rolling his eyes. Luckily for him, they arrived in the docking bay before either R-Stl or the Pirate could ask who Larry, Moe, and Curly were.

As they entered, Samus turned toward them. She greeted R-Stl with a small smile, Jacobs with a professional nod, and the Pirate with a dark glare. "You ready to go?"

They all nodded, and proceeded to board the ship. Four stations had been prepared; R-Stl had the pilots seat, while Samus sat at the nearby console that controlled the weapons systems. Jacobs was put further back, near the console where Adam's core had been attached to the ship, and the Pirate found a chair with restraints waiting for him in the middle of the ship. R-Stl looked over at him. "I'm sorry," he offered.

"Don't be," the Pirate answered promptly. "I deserve as such." He sat down, and let the restraints automatically close around him without so much as a protest.

Jacobs, too, sat in his seat. The ship was large enough to hold the four of them comfortably, but they were still at fairly close quarters. He could see things getting crowded if they were in a hectic situation. He tried to sit as far back into his chair as possible, wishing he could shrink just a little.

"Adam, are you there?" Samus called.

"We're live," the computer responded. "Luminoth tech is rather complicated compared to our own, but I think I've got it mostly worked out. Everybody ready?"

"You may begin the launch sequence," R-Stl answered. "I'm going to double-check the connections on your console to make sure you're hooked up properly." He stood up out of his seat and moved toward the back of the ship, crouching down next to Jacobs and fiddling with some wires.

"She likes you, too, you know," he said suddenly.

Jacobs glanced down at him, surprised. "Huh?"

"Samus," he continued, keeping his voice low. "When you promised to help her gain her abilities back, she was quite thankful. I don't think that's worn off just because she now has to take you along on a mission."

Jacobs looked up at the bounty hunter sitting in the front of the ship, and shook his head. "She's worried I'll get in her way. And she's right. You saw how I did when we were attacked by the Pirates; I'm more of a liability than an asset to her."

"I do not believe that is entirely true," R-Stl replied. "But I suppose we shall see." He stood up. "Looks like they crossed a few wires, but I've fixed them. Now, when you steer the ship left, it will actually go left."

"What would it have done before?" Adam asked.

"Activate the windshield wipers."

There was a long pause. "I think there might be a glitch in the translation system," Adam said at last. "Did you just say 'windshield wipers?'"

"_Scorpion_ to bridge," Samus interrupted. "All systems are go, and we are ready for takeoff whenever you are."

"Excellent, _Scorpion_," Connehan's voice crackled over the radio. "Opening docking bay doors."

The alarms sounded as the enormous outer doors of the _Oberon_'s docking bay ground open. The vast, empty darkness of space greeted the small crew of the _Scorpion_ as the ship's engines revved up.

"I still want an answer on the whole 'windshield wiper' thing, you know," Adam said.

"I'll explain later," the Luminoth promised. "Right after Jacobs explains what a 'stooge' is."

"All right, everyone," Connehan said. "You know your mission, and you know that we're all counting on you. Take out the Pirates before they and the X overrun the galaxy. Godspeed."

With that, R-Stl punched the accelerator, and the _Scorpion_ rocketed forward into the void.


	16. Perimeter

"...so you see, the particle beams oscillate across the front of the ship and repel the dust and debris that builds up on the viewports or cameras," R-Stl explained to the wall.

"...and you call these things 'windshield wipers?'" Adam asked, still sounding amused.

"Well, according to the definition you gave me, they are similar in function yet far removed in design. I imagine your 'translation filter' or whatever you call it found the phrase 'windshield wiper' to be a rough approximation."

"Huh," Adam said. "That's... interesting."

Jacobs let himself smile a little as he continued tapping away at the console near his seat. This was the scientific computer he'd be using to monitor Samus's vital signs once the mission began, so he wanted to familiarize himself with it and make sure it was in full working order beforehand. The Luminoth tech was, as Adam had said, unfamiliar and more advanced then their own. Not only was it based largely on fiber optics, it utilized the light and dark energy the Luminoth had researched during their war with the Ing, allowing for computers that worked like lightning but took some work to figure out. Still, he was starting to get the hang of things; Adam had translated the Luminoth text into English for him, so he just had to figure out which button did what. All that was left now was to sync the console to the replacement arm cannon he and Justin had fashioned for Samus.

He stood up carefully; for all their advanced computer technology, the Luminoth's inertial dampeners left a bit to be desired. Jacobs imagined many of the specifics of space travel had been lost to them after making Aether their home planet. The ride was comfortable, but it did get bumpy at times. Still, that was only half the reason for his caution; given the way Samus had treated him at the mission briefing, he wasn't too keen on having to interact with her.

The few short steps to the front of the ship took less time than he had hoped. He reached out to tap her shoulder, hesitated, then, with a sigh, withdrew his hand and just spoke up. "Hey, Samus?"

She glanced up at him. "Hm?"

"Can I borrow your arm cannon for a moment? I need to sync it to the computer so I can..."

"Oh, yeah," she said, nodding. "Go ahead." She turned back to her console, currently displaying a radar readout of the surrounding area. Blank.

_Just like her expression._

He muttered a sheepish "thanks" as he picked up the arm cannon and carried it back over to the console. "Yeah, she likes me all right," he muttered to himself as he began entering codes.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you."

It took all of Jacobs's nerves to not jump out of his seat. "What the—Adam? Is that you?!"

"Of course."

"What are you doing?!"

"Listening to you. My computer core is plugged into this console, remember?"

Jacobs lowered his head, hoping he could hide his reddening face from both the others on the ship and from Adam's electronic eye. "Keep it down, will you?" he hissed.

"I _am_ keeping it down." It was true; Adam's speakers were working at a small fraction of their maximum output. "I was human once, remember? I know how you feel."

"Right," the biologist grumbled, resuming his work. "I'm sure a former military commander knows how a scientist in the company of three soldiers feels."

"R-Stl is a researcher," Adam reminded him. "And our Pirate friend is a non-combatant. We're not even letting him _near_ a weapon, if we can help it."

"But he's still a warrior, and R-Stl wouldn't be able to do half the things he's done without at least _some_ combat training. What do I have?"

"Enough knowledge to outfit Samus with the power to regain all her abilities, for one."

Jacobs tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smile, but shook his head nevertheless. "I'm no fool, Adam. Samus may be grateful for that, but that's where it ends. As far as she's concerned, having me along makes this into more of a babysitting gig than anything."

"You don't know that."

"No, I don't. But it's what I would feel in her position."

"I'd think that says more about you than her, then."

Jacobs remained silent for a moment before sighing. "What do you care, anyway?"

"I care because, despite what you seem to think, we need you. You're the only one who knows enough about that procedure you performed on Samus to be able to tell if something goes wrong—and if it comes down to it, you're the one most likely to save her."

"Something which basically everyone else on this ship has already done," Jacobs noted.

"Then I'd say that this mission is your chance to do it yourself."

There was another pause before Jacobs began to stand up, rolling his eyes. "Whatever."

It was the sort of "whatever" a teenager gave when he knew he would lose an argument with his parents. If Adam had a mouth, he would have smiled.

Jacobs walked back across the ship and handed the weapon back to Samus. "All right," he said. "I've set it to transmit your vitals back here. If something starts to go wrong, I'll hopefully know about it before you do." He offered a weak smile.

"Good work," Samus said, distractedly.

The biologist let out yet another sigh. "Right." He headed back to his seat.

"Hey, wait," Samus said, reaching out and grabbing his hand. "Take a look at this."

He turned around, surprised. "Huh?"

Samus motioned to the weapons control panel she was sitting in front of. Jacobs looked down at the radar display. Something was beginning to appear at the edge of the screen; not a contact, but a large, fuzzy mess.

"Some sort of interference?" Samus said, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"I'll see what I can find," Jacobs answered, already moving back towards his station. He jumped into the chair and swung around to face the console, and immediately began scanning the surrounding area.

The results were not what he had expected. "Erp."

"What is it?"

"It's interference, yes, but not intentionally produced. This is some type of energy bleed."

"Energy bleed?" Samus glanced back at him, confused. "From what?"

"Perhaps that?" R-Stl said, pointing forward.

Everyone turned to face the viewscreen, and their eyes widened in shock. They were approaching a small planet, one largely red in color, and between them and it, floating several thousand kilometers off the planet's surface, was a large orbital cannon. The barrel of the weapon seemed to be almost as big as the _Scorpion_ itself; a single hit from it would surely tear the small ship apart.

And there was more than one. It seemed they were placed in a grid around the planet, probably as some sort of proximity defense system. It would take a large armada to be able to blast a way through and assault the Pirate base.

"Is this it?"

R-Stl glanced over his displays. "We're about where we're supposed to be. Either this is the Pirate's planet, or they've somehow moved it."

"Or we were given faulty directions," Samus said, turning around to face their Pirate companion.

"This is our—their—base," he confirmed. "And that is our defense grid."

"I never would have guessed," Adam grumbled. "How do we get past it?"

"As I've said, the method of disabling the grid is adaptive. It changes periodically. I'll need a closer look at that grid before I can figure out how to safely enter the planet's atmosphere."

R-Stl looked at the main viewscreen, then back at the others, his alien face displaying a very uncomfortable expression. "Exactly how close a look can we get before they open fire?"

"The cannons are automated; they'll only attack us if we cross the boundary they form without first disabling them."

"So they only shoot when they can hit each other or the planet?" Samus asked, arching an eyebrow.

"The cannons are well-armored, and, if one were destroyed by an errant shot from another, it wouldn't be difficult to replace. As for the planet, the facilities are all underground, so all they'd suffer is a few cave-ins. To them, that's an acceptable risk."

Samus turned back forward, biting her lip. "OK, so a direct attack is a no-no. I guess we'll try to get closer." She reached forward and pushed a few buttons on the weapons console. "But I'm powering up the dark cannon, just in case."

"That won't do any good," the Pirate reiterated.

"It does me."

"All right," R-Stl interjected before the argument could continue. "We'll go forward, but slowly."

The _Scorpion _began to drift towards the planet, R-Stl keeping an eye on the defense grid as the Pirate peered intently at the planet. Finally, he gave a start, the restraints grinding against his exoskeleton. "There!"

"What? Where?" R-Stl looked at the screen, not seeing anything.

"Over there—about two hundred meters to port."

The others stared at the viewscreen before Jacobs pointed at a small dot floating between two of the cannons. "What, that?"

"Yes! Fly towards that ring."

R-Stl glanced at the Pirate uneasily, but nevertheless began piloting the ship towards the thing Jacobs had pointed to. Sure enough, it was a metal ring; relatively large, but dwarfed by the cannons around it. The outside of the device was large and bulky, with multiple identical protrusions along its outer edge, but the inside was a simple, smooth loop, composed of multiple glowing panels. Jacobs peered at the device for a moment. "Are those... holographic projectors on the outside?"

"Yes," the Pirate answered simply.

"And on the inside...?"

"Motion sensors. Any ship that passes through the ring will activate the device."

"All right, and what does it do?"

"It projects a series of holographic rings through which the ship must be flown. Once we've passed through all the rings, the perimeter defenses will be disabled long enough for us to get past them."

A long silence fell over the ship. The Pirate looked around at them. "Is something wrong?"

"We." Jacobs was rubbing his head. "We have to fly through rings in order to disable the cannons?"

"Yes, in order to enter the perimeter. After that, we'll be safe; only objects that cross through the cannons while they're active are subject to attack. Anything already inside the field can pass out of it unharmed."

"No, no, back up," Jacobs grumbled. "We have to _fly through rings_ in order to disable the shield?"

"Yes."

"_This_ is your advanced adaptive security system which only a Pirate would know how to get through?! _This_ is why we had to bring you all this way?!"

"Jacobs..." Samus said warningly.

"I'm sorry," the biologist growled, "but I just can't get past this! The Pirates are planning a massive assault to take over the galaxy, and the key to bypassing their defenses is just proving you have basic flight skills?!"

"It could be worse," Samus offered. "All it took for me to infiltrate the Pirate homeworld is flying in through an air duct."

"It is far from as simple as a quick test of piloting ability," the Pirate interjected coldly. "There will be next to no margin for error. The pattern is likely to be one familiar to Pirate pilots, a sort of maneuver taught in the early stages of development. If we are to have any hope of disabling the cannons, we'll need to spot each ring a second _before_ it appears."

"Unless we let you fly, right?" Samus answered coldly.

The Pirate's face distorted into his version of a smile. "Sadly, no. Even if you were to let me go, I don't have the necessary training. I'm a trooper, not a pilot."

"That is true," R-Stl admitted. "Watching him fly that frigate yesterday was a bit like watching Jacobs fire a weapon."

"Hey!" Jacobs yelled.

"Oh." Samus fell silent. "That bad, huh?"

"I'm right here, you know," the biologist grumbled.

Samus glanced back towards the biologist's workstation. "Adam? You think you can handle it?"

"I can access both the propulsion system and the sensor array," the computer replied. "So yeah, I can handle it—as long as R-Stl will let me."

The Luminoth nodded his agreement. "If what the Pirate says is true, Adam's reflexes will serve us much better than mine. Go ahead."

"All right," Adam said, his synthesized voice full of apprehension. "Everyone, strap in."

"Not a problem," the Pirate mumbled, rolling his eyes as he motioned to his restraints.

Jacobs looked over at him, surprised, as he fastened his safety harness. "Did... did you just make a joke?"

"Hang on," Adam said, and the ship rushed forward.

As soon as they had passed through the metal ring, a shimmering, violet, iridescent one appeared a ways off to the right. Immediately the small ship swung around to starboard, and rocketed towards the new ring. The next ring appeared almost directly behind them, but a quick Immelman turn put them back on track, and they blasted through it.

"Just out of curiosity," Jacobs said to the Pirate in a low voice, "Just how powerful are those cannons?"

"You know how they interfered with the radar when you first saw them?" their captive muttered back.

"Yeah," Jacobs said, nodding. "A side effect of energy bleed-off, probably a result of being kept at a constant state of high charge."

There was a momentary silence.

"Oh."

"Don't worry," Samus called. "Adam knows what he's doing."

"Hey, just so we're clear, 'starboard' means 'left,' right?" the computer asked.

Samus shot a glare at the console. "Adam!"

"I'm joking, I'm joking!"

"Shouldn't you be concentrating on flying right now?"

"Look, I'm hooked into systems that use a base-three number system, fiber optic connections, and a power source more advanced than some people even know exists. I _am_ concentrating, and I've _still_ got enough memory left over for a LAN party. We're fine."

One of the cannons started to flash red.

"Um." Jacobs pointed at the cannon. "You sure about that?"

Adam was barely able to shift the vessel to the left enough to avoid the energy blast lancing out from the giant weapon; everyone found themselves being tossed back and forth, held in place only by their restraints. No sooner had the cannon released its shot than it began glowing again, charging another one. Jacobs turned to the Pirate, eyes wide with terror. "I thought you said they wouldn't shoot at us until we crossed the perimeter!"

"They wouldn't!" The Pirate yelled back. From the look on his face, he was as surprised and frightened as any of them. "I mean, they shouldn't! I mean..."

"OK," Adam shouted, "_Now_ I need to concentrate!" The ship's braking thrusters fired suddenly, and everyone was thrown forward in their seats. Another blast rocketed by right in front of them; were it not for the vacuum of space, Jacobs suspected his eyebrows would have been singed.

"It must be a malfunction!" The Pirate shouted. "None of the others are firing, so something must be wrong with this one!"

"That's just peachy," Samus growled. "All right, Adam, forget the rings. We're going to have to–"

"No!" The Pirate shouted, right as another blast narrowly missed them. "If we do not complete the rings, the other cannons will begin firing as well! We'd never survive that!"

"So I have to fly through the rings _and_ dodge that thing?!" Adam asked.

The Pirate only nodded fearfully.

"Like you said, Samus," he grumbled. "Peachy."

They were all thrown to the side again as the ship swung around and blasted forward. They passed through yet another ring right as it was about to disappear; a blast passed mere inches behind them as they did so.

"How many more of these do I have to do?" Adam asked, the stress audible even in his artificial voice.

"It can't be many more," the Pirate answered, sounding like he was trying to reassure himself as much as anything. "One—maybe two."

The _Scorpion_ zigzagged through space towards the next ring, narrowly dodging more shots left and right. After what seemed like a lifetime, they passed through it. "Damn!" Adam yelled. "Hang on, everyone, there's one more!" The ship swung around again, and the roar of the ship's thrusters increased to deafening levels. They blasted towards the last ring at an incredible speed, as the cannon's targeting sensors attempted to compensate, and the mighty weapon fired one more blast.

"Uh-oh," Adam said, almost too soft to be heard.

"What?!" Samus shouted.

A second later, she got her answer as the blast grazed the side of the ship.

The lights flashed out momentarily as the ship's power was all drawn into the shields. When they came back on, Samus found that the entire ship's interior seemed to have turned on its side. As soon as she realized that her chair had fallen over, she quickly undid the restraints and stood up. Looking around, she saw Jacobs pulling himself up, the Pirate dazed and still unable to move, and R-Stl lying motionless on the floor. Looking up at the viewscreen, she saw the final ring, growing ever closer. While the thrusters weren't firing, they nevertheless coasted right through it before it disappeared.

The ship's speakers came on, as a computerized voice contacted them from the Pirate base. "Access test completed; access to planet granted. Defense cannons disabled."

"Thanks for nothing," Samus mumbled.

She then looked back at the viewscreen. They had drifted around to face the rogue cannon once more, and despite the what the computer had said, it was charging another shot. "Adam!" she called. "Adam, we need to move!"

"I'd love to," the computerized voice came, "But I'm not in a position to do much moving right now."

The voice came not from the ship's audio system, but from the small, tinny speaker mounted directly on Adam's core. Samus whipped around to find the core lying on its side, several feet away from where it had been before. While most of the cables connecting it to the Luminoth vessel were in tact, several had come unplugged after they were hit. The realization hit her quickly; Adam was no longer in control of the ship.

She turned around and dove for the controls, only to find someone else's hands on them. She turned around, surprised. "Jacobs?!"

"No talk," the biologist growled, hitting the accelerator as hard as he could. "Dodging now."

The ship leaped forward right as the cannon fired. The shot raced right past their tail; there was a small but terrifying sound of wrenching metal as the blast took off a thin layer of armor.

"Jacobs..." Samus said warily.

"I can handle this," Jacobs said, his eyes not leaving the viewscreen. "Go take care of the others."

She eyed him uneasily. "Are you sure? Have you flown before?"

"Of course! I'm fully trained for a Scimitar-class medium fighter."

"Scimitar-class..." Samus shot him an uneasy look. "That's not from _Star Fox_, is it?"

"Of course not!"

There was a brief pause.

"...it's from _Wing Commander_."

Samus sighed. "Move over."

"No, please!" Jacobs shouted. He tore his eyes from the viewscreen, and when they met Samus's, she was taken aback by just how fearful he looked. "Look, Adam's unplugged, and R-Stl's out cold. Your record shows you let computers fly you more often than you fly yourself. Right now, I'm the most qualified pilot here. And I can do this." He paused to take a breath. "I have to do this. Please, Samus. I need to to trust me."

She didn't trust him. But she also knew that she couldn't afford not to. His eyes were full of fear; his gaze betrayed the growing knowledge that these moments might be his last. And yet, that fear hadn't caused him to freeze; it had caused him to grab the controls, and steer them to safety. She knew she needed to act fast, but she couldn't help but linger in that moment, as she looked into his eyes...

...his eyes which were decidedly _not_ on the viewscreen.

"If you're going to fly, then _fly_," she said forcefully. "Don't just stand there gaping at me."

Jacobs quickly turned back forward, blushing. "Right," he mumbled. "Sorry."

"Keep avoiding those shots," she called, moving to the back of the ship. "I'll see what I can do about the others."

She knelt down by R-Stl and began feeling him. While she was barely familiar with Luminoth physiology, he seemed to be breathing, and she could feel what she hoped was a heart beat. Nevertheless, he was out cold, and she doubted she had time to resuscitate him now. She went over to the Pirate's seat; before he even had a chance to look up at her fearfully, she hit the release on the back of his chair, and the restraints sprang open. He glanced up at her, utterly confused. "What..."

"I need your help," she said. "Get over here."

She crossed over to Adam's core; the Pirate soon joined her. They knelt down together, examining the mess of cords. "All right, how do we fix this?" Samus muttered.

"How am I supposed to know?" The Pirate asked, still confused.

"You're _not_," she replied, glaring at him. "But I figure you can't possibly make things _worse_." She tapped on the computer itself. "Adam, can you help us?"

"I can tell you when you try something that _doesn't_ work," the tinny voice rasped, "but without being able to see anything, I'm not going to be able to do much else."

"All right, trial and error it is." Samus looked at the Pirate. "You, grab a cord, and start plugging."

Another bolt whizzed by, too close for comfort. R-Stl began stirring. "Hrrn..."

Jacobs risked a glance over his shoulder at the Luminoth. "R-Stl! Are you awake?!"

"I... yes, I think so..." R-Stl blinked, looking around with a mystified expression. "What's going on? Where are mother and father...?"

Jacobs looked back at him again, his eyes widening in realization. "Oh, balls. Samus!" he yelled. "R-Stl's coming to, but he seems to have some brain damage!"

"No!" the Luminoth shouted suddenly. He waved his hand in the air, rubbing his temples at the same time. "No, I'm fine. I remember now." He looked around, blinking in confusion. "Why is Jacobs flying?"

"Testosterone," Samus answered. "He needed to show off."

"Is there a contest or something?" Jacobs growled. "Insult the biologist, win a shirt?"

"I wish." Samus motioned to R-Stl. "Jacobs can keep us away from those blasts for a while. Right now, we need you to help us with Adam. You're the only one who knows how he's supposed to be hooked up to the ship's computer."

"OK," R-Stl said, kneeling down and squinting at the mess of cords. "Let's see... if I remember correctly..."

"_If_ you remember correctly?!"

"I wasn't the one who hooked him up originally," R-Stl growled, "and I just hit my head against the control panel, so you'll forgive me if I'm a little unsure of myself."

Samus sighed. "I will, but only if we live long enough."

"All right," R-Stl said, grabbing some wires. "Help me get these untangled, and we'll see what we can do."

"Quickly, please," Jacobs called.

Samus looked at him. "I thought you wanted to fly!"

"I _wanted_ to keep us from getting blown up. The best way to do that then was grab the controls, and the best way to do it now is to hook Adam back up."

"We're working on it," R-Stl shouted, rubbing his temples again, "and it would help if you'd all keep your voices down." He plugged a cord back in to Adam's computer core. "Did that work?" he called.

"I think so," Adam said, his voice coming from the ship's speakers this time. "Let me try firing the thrusters."

The main viewscreen was suddenly filled by a woman's face. "Details are scarce, but inside sources have indicated that there is already a retaliatory mission underway to the Pirate's new secret base. Our sources refused to comment on whether famed bounty hunter Samus Aran was involved in the..."

"No!" Jacobs yelled. "Look, as much as I like the news, I kind of need to be able to see what's going on out there!"

"Hang on!" Adam shouted. "I'm trying to turn it off!"

"What did I say about keeping it down?!" R-Stl growled angrily.

The news broadcast disappeared, and was immediately replaced by a bolt rushing straight towards them. Jacobs let out a startled cry, pulling back on the steering control almost hard enough to snap it. The ship was barely able to pull up, and the bolt raced by their underside.

"OK!" R-Stl yelled. "Try it now!"

"...Yes!" Adam shouted. "I'm back in! Jacobs, let go of the controls; I'm taking over!"

The biologist released the controls, falling back into R-Stl's chair. Another bolt was coming at them from starboard. "Adam..." he said warily.

The ship suddenly executed an Immelman turn, and the bolt rocketed by, missing them by several meters. "Told you!" Adams shouted excitedly. "I'm back in the saddle again!"

"Thank God," Jacobs sighed, leaning back. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go fall over."

He fell over.

"All right, one crisis resolved," Samus said. "Now what do we do about the cannon?"

"It'll keep shooting at us, even if we manage to land on the planet," the Pirate mused. "It's too heavily armored for us to attack from the outside; the only way to disable it would be to shoot it straight up the barrel."

Samus glared at him. "Does anyone have a plan that _isn't_ tantamount to suicide?"

"Wait!" R-Stl called. "Our weapons aren't powerful enough to deflect a shot, but if we can build up enough power onto one, perhaps we can cause it to reverse and destroy the cannon from the inside!"

The Pirate blinked, confused. "Build up...? Weapons do not work that way!"

"The dark beam does. Samus"

Samus leaped into her seat. "Charging!" A rhythmic whine spread throughout the ship as power was channeled into the mighty dark cannon that made up the _Scorpion_'s tail.

"Adam," R-Stl called, "Immediately after you dodge the next shot, fly directly towards the cannon. The only we'll be able to do this is if we fire directly up the barrel."

"I agree with what Samus said earlier about suicide," Adam said, "but I guess I'll have to trust you guys on this one. Redirecting."

Another bolt flew by them, and everyone found themselves off-balance as the ship suddenly turned and began flying directly towards the cannon. While the orbital weapon began glowing with the charge of another shot, dark energy began to crackle around the ship's own massive cannon.

"We've got a full charge!" Samus called.

"Hold it as long as you can," R-Stl replied. "Wait to shoot until the blast's already coming toward us."

Jacobs looked up from his position on the floor. "Does this seem really stupid to anyone else?"

"Yes," all four of the others replied simultaneously.

"Right," he said. "Just making sure."

The cannon fired, and the bolt of energy nearly filled the screen.

"Now!" R-Stl screamed.

The shot from the mighty dark beam almost knocked the small ship back as it blasted out of the cannon. It hit the orbital cannon's shot, and at once splashed over it like a disgusting black liquid. The cannon blast continued to shoot forward, but at a severely slowed pace, and its bright color was diminished significantly by the dark energy clinging to it."

"Again!" R-Stl yelled. "Keep shooting!"

Samus loosed blast after blast at the oncoming shot. The dark beam was never meant for rapid fire, but Samus was still able to get impressive speed out of the weapon. Each round wasn't nearly as strong as the initial charged shot, but as each one hit the oncoming cannon blast, it spread more dark energy over it, causing it to slow even more."

"What is that stuff?" Jacobs said, looking at the bizarre liquid-like energy spreading over the blast.  
"Grape jelly," R-Stl said. "Dark energy that can build up and slow or freeze objects when fired in large amounts. As you can see, it can also effect certain typed of energy."

Jacobs gave him a disturbed look. "And you call it _grape jelly?_"

"Can we discuss this later?!" Samus yelled, still firing.

As more and more shots hit their mark, the oncoming blast continued to slow down, then stopped completely, then began moving in the opposite direction. Samus continued shooting at it, but it soon became pointless as the shot was traveling too fast for the dark beam blasts to catch up to it. The blast raced back up the barrel of the cannon that had fired it.

For a second, all was quiet, and then the orbital cannon exploded. The flames stood in space for a moment before fizzling out, and "grape jelly" flew everywhere—including on the outside of the _Scorpion._

The ship's inhabitants let out a sigh of relief. Samus looked at Jacobs. "None of the other cannons are firing?"

The biologist pulled himself up onto his chair, and looked at the console intently. "Nope. Looks like we successfully disabled them; I guess this one just got up on the wrong side of the assembly line."

R-Stl returned to his own seat as well. "Adam," he said, "Would you kindly activate the windshield wipers?"

A thin red beam was seen on the viewscreen as it passed over the ship. Within seconds, the goo that had built up from the cannon's explosion was gone.

"Much better," R-Stl said, sounding happy for once.

The Pirate returned to his seat voluntarily, and once again the restraints closed around him. "So," he asked, "what now?"

"We do what we came here to do in the first place," Samus said, standing up. "Adam, take us down."

The ship turned slowly in space, and began descending towards the planet. Samus walked over to Jacob's workstation. "Jacobs, can you scan the planet?"

"Sure," he said. He turned to the computer and began running the scan, when he suddenly felt Samus's hand on his shoulder.

She leaned down close to him, lowering her voice. "Jacobs, you did a good job. You're right; you were the only one conscious at the time who could fly well enough to keep us alive."

Jacobs found himself blushing again. No matter how much Samus belittled him, no matter how much he grew to resent her, he still cherished it when she complimented him. "Thank you," he mumbled.

"I'm sorry about that crack I made about testosterone," she said.

He lowered his eyes. "In your defense, you were right. I did kind of want to show off."

"Well, don't."

"It won't happen again," he sighed. "I'm sorry."

"That's not what I meant," she replied.

He looked up at her, surprised. "What...?"

"You don't _need_ to show off, Jacobs. You're valuable enough to this mission without having to prove to me that you can do something like fly in a combat situation. If you try pulling stunts just to show off, all you're going to do is put yourself in danger. Stop trying to convince us that you're important to the mission; we're already convinced."

Jacobs blinked. "But... you, R-Stl, and the Pirate all have combat training, and..."

"And you can't seem to hit anything but a Pirate's shoulder. So what? That's not why you're here. We all have combat training, and you know what? That means you don't have to. We're here to take care of you."

He pursed his lips. "I hate being taken care of."

"So do I," Samus admitted. "But you're here to take care of me—to make sure the X-infusion functions properly—so I guess it's something we're both going to have to deal with it."

With that, she stood up and started towards her own station.

"I told you she didn't hate you," Adam said quitly.

"Will you just be..." Jacobs was distracted by the computer beeping to indicate the scan had been completed. "...quiet..."

His eyes widened in shock. Without a word, he grabbed Samus before she could leave. She turned around, startled. "What? What is..." She trailed off as her eyes focused on the image on the screen. "Oh, you have got to be _kidding_ me..."

The Pirate and R-Stl turned towards Jacob's viewscreen, but couldn't figure out what had their human companions so perturbed. The display showed a general layout of subterranean tunnels and caverns beneath the planet's surface, and there didn't seem to be anything strange about it. "What's wrong?" R-Stl asked.

"I recognize it from Samus's old mission files," Jacobs breathed softly. "The Pirate base on this planet is, room-for-room, almost an exact replica of the cavern system on Zebes."


End file.
